Everything I Never told You by Celeste Ng is a mystery novel about how Lydia, the protagonist, died. The family slowly finds out more information about Lydia and how exactly she died in the Lake in May, 1977. The world “recipes” can relate to this novel in many different way. A recipe can be instructions to create food. It can also be the steps in order to complete something, or who a person is based off his or her past. The things that have happened in Lydia’s life have made her the way she is, the way she was brought up/stirred up creates the person she is now. At home, James and Marilyn are fighting about whether Marilyn should work and what it means to work. They are creating a recipe as to how Marilyn should live her life. Marilyn also realizes how much recipes mean to her because of her mother. There are also “recipes for disasters”, as Marilyn leaves, the Lee family is unable to live without her. Characters, events and grammar all show an aspect of how recipes relate to this novel. Recipes are the steps that lead to an objective. Recipes in Everything I Never told You reveal more about the characters, and help the readers relate to the novel better.
As the novel continues, the reader learns even more about Lydia. The reader begins to see the real personality within her, “A small tear, small enough to slip by the busy policemen, intended to escape an even sharper eye: a mother’s. Marilyn works her hand inside and pulls out an open package of Marlboros. And beneath that, she finds something else: an open box of condoms.”(120) Throughout the novel, the reader learns about Lydia. Just like a recipe, the more instructions are read, the closer a cook is to the final dish. Celeste Ng cooks up quite the storm; Lydia is one of the most complex and confusing characters in the novel. Through Marilyn and Nath’s perspectives, the reader begins to relate to Lydia more. Lydia isn’t the perfect child, nobody is, the readers gets to see a different concrete side to Lydia that is relatable.
Marilyn however, has dreams for herself. Celeste Ng creates a recipe as to who Marliyn is, but Marilyn internally realizes how she doesn’t want to be that person. “Marilyn thought uneasily of her own life, of hours spent making breakfasts, serving dinners, packing lunches into near paper bags. How was it possible to spend so many hours spreading peanut butter across bread? How was it possible to spend so many hours cooking eggs? Sunny-side up for James. Hard-boiled for Nath. Scrambled for Lydia. It behooves a good wife to know how to make an egg behave in six basic ways. Was she sad? Yes. She was sad. About the eggs. About everything.” (86) Celeste Ng reveals how unhappy Marilyn is with her life. The recipe to be a good mother, is not the one Marilyn chose to take.
Celeste Ng uses the phrase, “hunched so deeply that his chest was concave.” This image conveys not only what Nath seems like to the world, but also how James sees Nath in a negative way, almost as if he doesn’t want Nath as his son. The characterization of James is opposite to Nath. James is a rough man who wants to fit in. “At home, James did not know how to make eggs behave in any way. Each morning, he served the children cereal for breakfast and send them to school with thirty cents apiece for the lunch line.” (87) It’s interesting to see how this is James’s recipe, 30 cents for lunch. He doesn’t put the time and thought into the children as Marilyn does, and therefore, falls out of the family. Ng depicts a cold-hearted personality of James to the readers.
Overall, the recipes in Everything I Never told You reveal more about the characters, and help the readers relate to the novel better. From the characterization of Lydia and Marilyn, the reader can relate to the craziness and doubt that both these characters share. From the characterization of Nath and James, the reader is able to see the contrast between them, and how their distance from the family makes them alike. The recipes relate to the characterization, and the final dishes relate to how the novel connects the readers and the characters.
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