Silences and Betrayals in Everything I Never Told You
Get this book called Celeste Ng. Everything I Never Told You. Penguin edition and answer this question below:
The narrative of Everything I Never Told You relates the past and present of the Lee’s family life together and the characters of each family member. The narrative threads expose both the silences among these characters — who don’t say what they should say to each other, either husband to wife, or parent to child or vice versa — and the betrayals, either overt, like James’s infidelity with Julia or more insidious and ongoing ones. Discuss these themes of what remains uspoken or what betrayals occur in this troubled family. Again, don’t be global! Take any specific scene or action to discuss. What happens? Why? What is your interpretation and response?
Every character in Everything I Never Told You struggles under the weight of expectations. James faces stereotypes about his race. Marilyn fights gender expectations. The three Lee children struggle with parental expectations. When James and Marilyn marry, Marilyn’s mother voices her belief that the union will fail because James is Asian. The expectation that he isn’t “man enough” for Marilyn weighs heavily on James throughout their marriage. The pressure ultimately pushes him into an extramarital affair with his Asian assistant, Louisa, with whom he feels no expectation other than to be himself.
Expectations, in turn, lead to loneliness. James’s children feel the same sense of cultural isolation their father does, although Nath arguably feels it most painfully. Neither he nor Lydia have any friends at school, but Nath’s fellow students openly bully him at the swimming pool, taunting him during a game by saying “Chink can’t find China.” Nath’s social isolation parallels his family experience. With all of his parents’ attention focused on Lydia, Nath feels as if no one cares about his success. The same could be said of Hannah, who lives as a forgotten child in Lydia’s shadow. Lydia, in turn, feels so overwhelmed by her parents’ expectations for her that she literally kills herself trying to change her life.
