Summary Of Lan Cao's Monkey Bridge

Monkey Bridge, by Lan Cao, is a book that goes into the trouble of a young vietnamese women, Mai, trying move past her childhood, to fit into the fast pace culture of America. But she is haunted with the horrors of growing up in saigon during the Vietnam War, and trying desperately to cut herself off from anything from her past life. This would have been easy considering almost none of her old life is like the one in america, but her mother, thanh, is stuck in her old ways and tradition. Because this mother daughter dynamic started to become deformed, and soon mai no longer can spread her feeling toward her own mother and her war stricken country. Lan cao use lots of literary devices in her writing to add more depth and meaning to the reading.she uses a metaphor that not

This quote reforms the symbolism between the seahouse coastline of vietnam and Mai's mother. The author uses this throughout the book to add an extra connection between her mother and vietnam. In the book mai’s see her mothers “ silhouette cast a faint sea-horse curve against the dark window-shine.”(pg 161) , another example of the author connecting mai’s mother to vietnam which example her disconnect, and resentment. The main premises of the book is mais need to fit into american culture, hence her dresser to get into college. Her mother is the one thing holding her back, not only is she completely depended on her, but she is a constant reminder of her traumatising childhood. The author stresses this point on the very last page by summing up once again the mother live through the symbolism of a sea horse” outside, a faint sliver of what only two weeks ago had been a full moon dangled like a seahorse from the sky”(pg 260) the seahorse shaped moon like her mother was alive and bright just weeks ago, compared to now where her mother is dead only leaving the sliver of what it once