Ng is sort of like a literary engineer.
In her novel Everything I Never Told You, she used various events and characters to build and design an intricate system of ideas. Ng’s exploration of racial isolation and struggles, familial and parenting conflicts, as well as gender roles all act like systems. They're made up of a bunch of smaller points in her story, and work together to form larger ideas.
Struggles with racial tensions and isolation are commonly seen throughout the beginning of the novel, especially in James’s childhood and marriage. He learned to be ashamed of his identity, and it became a factor that isolated him. “The first morning, James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ It wasn’t until he heard the horror in the teacher’s voice---’Shirley Byron!’---that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away.” (Ng 43). In his marriage with Marilyn, he felt incredibly lucky to gain the opportunity to blend in. “It was as if America herself was taking him in. It was too much luck.” (Ng 45). Even still, he and Marilyn dealt with issues concerning their interracial marriage. Marilyn's mother held the popular opinion that interracial relationships were unnatural and not okay. “‘Think about your children,’ she said. ‘Where will you live? You won’t fit in anywhere. You’ll be sorry for the rest of your life.’” (Ng 54) Ng mentions the Loving v. Virginia case, which was a huge landmark in the civil rights movement. “Just days before, hundreds of miles away, another couple had married, too---a white man, a black woman, who would share a most appropriate name: Loving. In four months they would be arrested in Virginia, the law reminding them that Almighty God had never intended white, black ,yellow, and red to mix, that there should be no mongrel citizens, no obliteration of racial pride.” (Ng 55)
Ng uses all of these events in the story and pieces from her characters to develop the system of racial inequality.
Ng also introduces a system concerning parenting and family relationships. James desperately attempts to live through his son, Nath, by pushing him to become a more successful version of himself. “Although James himself had been a swimmer in high school, he had never won a trophy… Now he suspected that Nath had the makings of a swimmer, too… In high school, James imagined, Nath would be the start of the team, the collector of trophies, the anchorman in the relay.” (Ng 88) James wasn't a successful swimmer, often separated from his teammates. He hoped Nath would become what he couldn't, a way of compensating for his own lack of success. Nath is, in fact, very similar to James. They both are isolated from the other children, shy and reluctant, and were by no means popular. “James, not attuned to the sensitivities of the playground, was suddenly annoyed at his son’s shyness, his reluctance. The confident young man in his imagination dwindled to a nervous little boy: skinny, small, hunched so deeply that his chest was concave. And though he would not admit it, Nath---legs twisted, stacking the toes of one foot atop the other---reminded him of himself at that age.” (Ng 88)
James wants his son to be successful and to prevent him from dealing with the struggles he faced as a child. During his son’s game of Marco Polo with the other children in the pool, the other kids all crawled and sat on the edge. James hoped it was simply because they were tired, or they were just playing, but his racial difference was a major factor. “Nothing to do with Nath. Then an older girl---maybe ten or eleven---shouted, ‘Chink can’t find China!’ and the other children laughed. A rock formed and sank in James’s belly.” (Ng 90) James and Nath’s day at the pool pushed James to the realization that his son wouldn’t be bringing home trophies or be popular in school. James himself was taunted and teased in his childhood, and his resolution when Nath faced the same difficulty was to try to make his son perceive it as a joke, something normal. “So part of him wanted to tell Nath that he knew: what it was like to be teased, what it was like to never fit in. The other part of him wanted to shake his son, to slap him. To shape him into something different.” (Ng 92)
James and Nath’s relationship is very similar to that of Marilyn and her own mother. Marilyn’s mother desperately hopes for Marilyn to successfully do what she had not. She wished for Marilyn to marry a man and stay with him, become a successful housewife, and embody the ideal, Betty Crocker-esque family. “She thought with sharp and painful pity of her mother, who had planned on a golden, vanilla-scented life but ended up alone, trapped like a fly in this small and sad and empty house, this small and sad and empty life, her daughter gone, no trace of herself left except these pencil-marked dreams.” (Ng 83) Marilyn’s mother was never able to attain her goal, and sought for Marilyn to have what she so desperately wanted.
Marilyn’s mother pressed for Marilyn to become the perfect housewife, and her upbringing clearly introduced the system of gender roles that Ng develops. Marilyn struggles with her want to have a career, but she feels limited by her role as a mother. “She could go back to school now, at last, and finish her degree. Do everything she’d planned before the children came along. Only now she couldn’t remember how to write a paper, how to take notes; it seemed as vague and hazy as something she had done in a dream. How could she study when dinner needed cooking, when Nath needed to be tucked in, when Lydia wanted to play?” (Ng 77) Marilyn felt she was unable to simultaneously do both. Being a mother while pursuing a professional career didn't seem possible at the time, and even today it is difficult.
Rather than try to be both, Marilyn just decided to disappear to attend university. “In the end she tore up the note and tossed the shreds into the wastepaper basket. Better, she decided, just to go. To disappear from their lives as if she had never been there.” (Ng 100) The family never talked about the temporary disappearance of Marilyn, which only made her desire for an education seem worse. “For as long as she’s been alive, the family has never spoken of it…” (Ng 102) Ng develops concepts of masculinity and femininity through the dynamic of James and Marilyn’s career choices and household obligations. James himself feels pressure to live up to the image of an ideal husband. When confronted with the possibility of his wife wanting to pursue a career, “James was less enthusiastic. He knew what people would say: He couldn’t make enough---his wife had to hire herself out.” (Ng 79) His idea of masculinity demands that he provide for his family financially, yet allow for Marilyn to tend to more domestic aspects of their household. “At home, James did not know how to make eggs behave in any way. Each morning, he served the children cereal for breakfast and sent them to school with thirty cents apiece for the lunch line.” (Ng 87) James has never been exposed to domestic housework such as cooking or cleaning, as societal gender roles placed that obligation onto Marilyn.
Ng's development of all these different ideas that cycle through the novel are like literary systems. They are all made of smaller parts that accumulate and work together to form a more complex whole.
In her novel Everything I Never Told You, she used various events and characters to build and design an intricate system of ideas. Ng’s exploration of racial isolation and struggles, familial and parenting conflicts, as well as gender roles all act like systems. They're made up of a bunch of smaller points in her story, and work together to form larger ideas.
Struggles with racial tensions and isolation are commonly seen throughout the beginning of the novel, especially in James’s childhood and marriage. He learned to be ashamed of his identity, and it became a factor that isolated him. “The first morning, James slid into his seat and the girl next to him asked, ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’ It wasn’t until he heard the horror in the teacher’s voice---’Shirley Byron!’---that he realized he was supposed to be embarrassed; the next time it happened, he had learned his lesson and turned red right away.” (Ng 43). In his marriage with Marilyn, he felt incredibly lucky to gain the opportunity to blend in. “It was as if America herself was taking him in. It was too much luck.” (Ng 45). Even still, he and Marilyn dealt with issues concerning their interracial marriage. Marilyn's mother held the popular opinion that interracial relationships were unnatural and not okay. “‘Think about your children,’ she said. ‘Where will you live? You won’t fit in anywhere. You’ll be sorry for the rest of your life.’” (Ng 54) Ng mentions the Loving v. Virginia case, which was a huge landmark in the civil rights movement. “Just days before, hundreds of miles away, another couple had married, too---a white man, a black woman, who would share a most appropriate name: Loving. In four months they would be arrested in Virginia, the law reminding them that Almighty God had never intended white, black ,yellow, and red to mix, that there should be no mongrel citizens, no obliteration of racial pride.” (Ng 55)
Ng uses all of these events in the story and pieces from her characters to develop the system of racial inequality.
Ng also introduces a system concerning parenting and family relationships. James desperately attempts to live through his son, Nath, by pushing him to become a more successful version of himself. “Although James himself had been a swimmer in high school, he had never won a trophy… Now he suspected that Nath had the makings of a swimmer, too… In high school, James imagined, Nath would be the start of the team, the collector of trophies, the anchorman in the relay.” (Ng 88) James wasn't a successful swimmer, often separated from his teammates. He hoped Nath would become what he couldn't, a way of compensating for his own lack of success. Nath is, in fact, very similar to James. They both are isolated from the other children, shy and reluctant, and were by no means popular. “James, not attuned to the sensitivities of the playground, was suddenly annoyed at his son’s shyness, his reluctance. The confident young man in his imagination dwindled to a nervous little boy: skinny, small, hunched so deeply that his chest was concave. And though he would not admit it, Nath---legs twisted, stacking the toes of one foot atop the other---reminded him of himself at that age.” (Ng 88)
James wants his son to be successful and to prevent him from dealing with the struggles he faced as a child. During his son’s game of Marco Polo with the other children in the pool, the other kids all crawled and sat on the edge. James hoped it was simply because they were tired, or they were just playing, but his racial difference was a major factor. “Nothing to do with Nath. Then an older girl---maybe ten or eleven---shouted, ‘Chink can’t find China!’ and the other children laughed. A rock formed and sank in James’s belly.” (Ng 90) James and Nath’s day at the pool pushed James to the realization that his son wouldn’t be bringing home trophies or be popular in school. James himself was taunted and teased in his childhood, and his resolution when Nath faced the same difficulty was to try to make his son perceive it as a joke, something normal. “So part of him wanted to tell Nath that he knew: what it was like to be teased, what it was like to never fit in. The other part of him wanted to shake his son, to slap him. To shape him into something different.” (Ng 92)
James and Nath’s relationship is very similar to that of Marilyn and her own mother. Marilyn’s mother desperately hopes for Marilyn to successfully do what she had not. She wished for Marilyn to marry a man and stay with him, become a successful housewife, and embody the ideal, Betty Crocker-esque family. “She thought with sharp and painful pity of her mother, who had planned on a golden, vanilla-scented life but ended up alone, trapped like a fly in this small and sad and empty house, this small and sad and empty life, her daughter gone, no trace of herself left except these pencil-marked dreams.” (Ng 83) Marilyn’s mother was never able to attain her goal, and sought for Marilyn to have what she so desperately wanted.
Marilyn’s mother pressed for Marilyn to become the perfect housewife, and her upbringing clearly introduced the system of gender roles that Ng develops. Marilyn struggles with her want to have a career, but she feels limited by her role as a mother. “She could go back to school now, at last, and finish her degree. Do everything she’d planned before the children came along. Only now she couldn’t remember how to write a paper, how to take notes; it seemed as vague and hazy as something she had done in a dream. How could she study when dinner needed cooking, when Nath needed to be tucked in, when Lydia wanted to play?” (Ng 77) Marilyn felt she was unable to simultaneously do both. Being a mother while pursuing a professional career didn't seem possible at the time, and even today it is difficult.
Rather than try to be both, Marilyn just decided to disappear to attend university. “In the end she tore up the note and tossed the shreds into the wastepaper basket. Better, she decided, just to go. To disappear from their lives as if she had never been there.” (Ng 100) The family never talked about the temporary disappearance of Marilyn, which only made her desire for an education seem worse. “For as long as she’s been alive, the family has never spoken of it…” (Ng 102) Ng develops concepts of masculinity and femininity through the dynamic of James and Marilyn’s career choices and household obligations. James himself feels pressure to live up to the image of an ideal husband. When confronted with the possibility of his wife wanting to pursue a career, “James was less enthusiastic. He knew what people would say: He couldn’t make enough---his wife had to hire herself out.” (Ng 79) His idea of masculinity demands that he provide for his family financially, yet allow for Marilyn to tend to more domestic aspects of their household. “At home, James did not know how to make eggs behave in any way. Each morning, he served the children cereal for breakfast and sent them to school with thirty cents apiece for the lunch line.” (Ng 87) James has never been exposed to domestic housework such as cooking or cleaning, as societal gender roles placed that obligation onto Marilyn.
Ng's development of all these different ideas that cycle through the novel are like literary systems. They are all made of smaller parts that accumulate and work together to form a more complex whole.
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