Of Home And Belonging In How To Pronounce Knife And Madeleine Thien

Oftentimes, the impact of a child’s sense of home and belonging has a profound effect on their development. In the short stories “How to Pronounce Knife” and “Simple Recipes,” authors Souvankham Thammavongsa and Madeleine Thien engage with the effects home and belonging have on personal decisions and growth through narratives of childhoods in immigrant families; how crucial moments in childhood shape the development of the narrators. The narrator Joy in Souvankham Thammavongsa’s work solidifies her belonging and place in her family, prompting her to become their defender. Dissimilarly, the daughter from “Simple Recipes” has her concept of home and belonging fragmented, resulting in her rejecting her culture as an adult, distancing herself

Prior to the incident, Joy’s father mistakenly pronounces knife with a hard k, a result of English being his second language. Innocuously repeated by Joy later in class, she unknowingly incites a series of events as she says it “ the way her father had told her,” but was ridiculed by a “yellow-haired girl in the class” who insensitively corrected her and “rolled her eyes as if there was nothing easier in the world to know” (Souvankham Thammavongsa 7, 8). Joy perseveres in the face of her classmate, teacher, and principle berating her – and by extension her father – by defending and arguing her side of the story, “never [giving] up on what her father said” (Souvankham Thammavongsa 9). This incident serves as a defining moment for Joy’s character in “How to Pronounce Knife,” self-evident in the title as well. She stands up against her school that never made her feel like she belonged; a place where she is “told of rules and how things are the way they are” and when the norms are questioned, “none of [those in charge], with all their lifetimes of reading and good education, could explain [why]” (Souvankham Thammavongsa 8, 9). Importantly, this harshness Joy experiences from

Both stories’ expositions establish why the protagonists would seek belonging from their families, viewing them as their home. Importantly, the inciting incidents in the stories – misreading aloud the pronunciation of knife and the fish dinner – permanently change the narrators’ perception of home and belonging, thereby influencing who they grow up to become and the choices they make. Souvankham Thammavongsa’s narrator Joy strengthens her familial relations, whilst Thien’s narrator becomes distressed about what her place of home and sense of belonging has become. Consequently, Joy’s character develops into a protector for her family, and Thien’s narrator chooses to distance herself from her culture, the hurt associated outweighing positive memories and familiarity. The authors’ exploration of the complicated effects of home and belonging on children’s personal development, especially those from immigrant families, reflects reality as such feelings, whether it be the prevailing presence or absence of them, may influence who a person will become. This impactful connection between feelings of home and belonging and one’s development is not something to be dismissed, and perhaps