The Gangster We Are Looking For - Critical Essay

Introduction

The novel, The Gangster we are looking for is a carefully taught and written story that presents the ideas of the writer in a rather controversial manner. The story is told from a childish perspective whereby the narrator is a six-year-old child who is a victim of displacement and war from Vietnam. The shift from their home country is faced with challenges along the way where her parents are separated during the travel but later reunited. As described in the book, the love between her parents is strong but the situations at hand do not allow them to express their feelings.

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Trauma involved with war and the mass displacement of people resulting in refugees affects their mental health for generations to come. The narrator who is a young girl tells the story from her perspective which is a means by the author of symbolizing that children notice the acts of their parents, as well as any changes in the environment and, are affected by external changes just as adults. In one particular scene, "That first day on the mountain, I made a game of following in my Ba's footsteps so I left no tracks of my own in the snow. When I stopped and looked back in the direction we came from, I could see only my Ba's footprints and the grandmother's" (Le, 14). While the child follows in the footsteps of her father, this scene might be ignored as it poses as a serene scene filled with pleasure.

However, the child may not notice following the footsteps of her father, but this also happens later in her life. During this time the child notices her father's footsteps covers her own a symbolic meaning that parents influence the thought and decisions of their children unknowingly. The child's life will be determined by the decisions her parents make which may be traumatizing at times such as the decision to migrate from Vietnam.

As the narrator tries to adjust to her new life in a new country, she finds herself alone. She misses the company of her late brother who she envisions in her daily life. Their father who upon arrival has found himself distant from his family which clearly suggest that he does not want to be associated with clearing and answering questions from their past. This state of ignorance bothers the narrator who wants to find out more about more what she has seen and not understood. The author describes this saying, "Children see-they absorb a lot through their visual sense-but there's a difference between seeing and understanding, or seeing and knowing. She can't help but see. It does not mean she really knows what's going on or even that she understands" (Le, 102). As much as this may not be a priority in the narrator's father's thoughts, his child is traumatized from the isolation.

The narrator's brother also plays an important role in building the topic of trauma. Although her brother is not physically present, the thought that his presence may bring changes to the status quo influences the narrator to become lonelier. During most of her free time, the narrator puts her brother in her thoughts and how he would react to events in the new country. Since their mother has been left behind, the narrator feels in complete solitude as if she has been trapped within herself with no one to talk to. These feelings are clearly emulated towards the end of the second part with the incident of the moth. Although the moth is not alive, the narrator empathizes with it as she understands the feeling of being trapped. She breaks the glass in an attempt to free the moth for her own accomplishment.

The narrator is a six-year-old girl who at such a tender age has experienced a lot of traumatizing events especially the death of her brother and the migration to a totally different country. These events have taken place and none of the involved parties has taken their time to make her understand the reasons for their relocation of why her brother, who was very close lost his life. These thoughts push the narrator into a spot where she daydreams and makes herself an illusion of the sea which is vast and wide in remembrance to her native home. The thoughts of her brother too provide a perfect route for her escape from the real world of isolation to that which is in her control.

In later years of the narrator's life, she strives to distance herself from her family as she feels they were distant when she needed answers from them. When the persona is older, she runs away from her parents as she is in a state of fear she might become like her father who sits alone in darkness haunted from feelings and thoughts from their past. The narrator feels that talking and sharing these thoughts might have changed her perspective. She also travels back to Vietnam her native home to make peace with her past. Trauma and depression from the narrator's childhood have been translated to her adult life.

Conclusion

Trauma in children, most importantly, immigrant children have been neglected since they are considered young and naive yet they do not comprehend the sights and sounds received from their environment. Throughout the story, the narrator experiences traumatic events which no one bothers to address starting from the death of her brother. These events could be addressed in the early years of the child's development in talking sessions and deep conversations which may help in bringing the family closer together. The narrator could also get a chance to embrace her native home and not be curious about what happened or if their family hates the place. Trauma should not be neglected as it brings devastating effects on character and personality.

Works Cited

Le, Thi Diem Thuy. The gangster we are all looking for. Anchor, 2011.