Munching on Words

Munching on Words: Celeste Ng's Character Lydia Lee

         Isn’t it wonderful after a tedious at school, when go back to your house, flop onto the sofa, taking out a freshly baked piece of cake. You first admire it’s beauty, soon wrapping your tongue  around a layer of cream cheese frosting tucked between the red velvet blankets. A symphony of euphoria blooms as you lie down on the couch full of satisfaction. Similarly in literature, effective writing can bring a character to life and manifest in the reader’s heart. In “Everything I Never Told You,” Celeste Ng pieces together a delectable recipe narrating an interracial family, in America in the 1970s, trying to uncover the cause of its daughter’s sudden death. Ng, as a literary baker, brings the protagonist, Lydia Lee, to life with two tablespoons of physical traits, four cups of maternal influences and ten minutes under high heat of secrets. 

Digging that fork into that moist dense cake

1). Add two tablespoons of Physical Characteristics.
    
             A person’s physical characteristic hints his or her inner personality. Ng’s description of Lydia’s physical appearance is like the sugar and butter, giving the cake its delectable flavors. When Lydia’s family looked through its family album, they saw a photo of Lydia that “her eyes are like dark holes in the shiny paper.” Ng describes Lydia as gloomy, sinister and lifeless. Contrastly, in the next photo, “she looks like a model in a magazine ad, lips dark and sharp, a plate of perfectly frosted cake poised on a delicate hand.” The choice of diction, “delicate,” implies she’s fragile- needing care and attention. The facade of Lydia’s flawless, almost unnatural image, foreshadows Lydia’s lies to pretend to be the perfect daughter.

            Moreover, Ng uses sensory imagery to develop Lydia as a convincing character. In Lydia’s bedroom, her mother smells “not just the powdery flowers of her perfume, or the clean scent of shampoo on her pillow- case, or the trace of cigarette smoke… she can smell Lydia herself under all those surface layers, the sour- sweet smell of her skin.” Lydia’s natural citrus aroma suggest she is a pure sweet girl; however, the layers of perfume, shampoo and cigarette smoke symbolizes her attempt to conceal her true- self because of her insecurities.

         Furthermore, the physical similarities between Lydia and her mother helps the reader to understand Lydia based on the actions and thoughts of her mother. They had “the same elfish chin and high cheek- bones and left- cheek dimple, the same thin- shouldered build. Only the hair color is different, Lydia’s ink- black instead of their mother’s honey- blond.” The similarities emphasizes the strong influence the mother had, hence her mother’s past and may supply hints for the cause of Lydia’s death. Therefore, describing her physical characteristics helps the reader to visualize Lydia, giving more appeal to her “taste.” The sugar, enhances the taste of the cake, and the butter, harmonizes the other ingredients Likewise, the description of physical traits and amplifies the techniques Ng uses to characterize Lydia, giving Lydia more spice and character.

Addicting sugar

Step 2: Mix with four cups of family.

           “Like mother like daughter,” Lydia’s family shapes her personality from the moment she was born. Her mother, Marilyn Lee, sets the foundation of her behavior and temperament, like the flour to the cake. When Lydia was five, Marilyn left her family because of her fear of living an empty meaningless life. Marilyn saw herself in her mother as she “planned on a golden, vanilla scented life but ended up like a fly in this small and sad and empty house, this small and sad empty life, her daughter gone, no trace of herself left except these pencil marked dreams.” Marilyn was a smart student at the top of her class while breaking gender stereotypes. She imagined to be a doctor and resented her mother’s dreams of her finding a “Harvard man” and becoming a housewife.

           To Marilyn’s disappointment, she became exactly who her mother wished her to be. With her deserted dreams, she pinned her expectations on Lydia since “she’s their mother’s favorite.” In Lydia’s room, “the bookshelf is so full of books that some are crammed in sideways at the top: A Brief History of Medicine, she reads upside down. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. All the books Marilyn had given her over the years to inspire her.” Pinning incredible expectations on Lydia suggests she’s an obedient girl under a lot of pressure trying to live up to it. Like the flour, Marilyn provides the structure of Lydia’s life and her mother’s suffering also inflicts on the Lydia herself, setting up a base for her unhappiness and possibly also her death. 

Constructing the perfect recipe

Step 3: Bake in oven at 175 degrees for 45 minutes. 
                   
      Lydia’s secrets are like an oven, , Ng’s final procedure give depth to the character, giving a reason for the readers to be interested in Lydia’s story. The objective of the book is to investigate the reason of Lydia’s death, presented in the first sentence, “Lydia’s dead. But they don’t know this yet.” Despite her family sees her as a sweet daughter with good grades, loyal friends and a positive attitude, in reality she is depressed and friendless. Nath Lee, Lydia’s brother, discovers her secrets: “Once, he stayed on the phone line after Lydia picked up and heard not gossip, but his sister’s voice duly rattling off assignments- read Act I of Othello, do the odd- numbered problems in Section 5- then quiet after the hang- up click. The next day, while Lydia was curled on the window seat, phone pressed to her ear, he’d picked up the extension in the kitchen and heard only the low drone of the dial tone… If her father says, “Lydia, how’s Pam doing?” Lydia says, “Oh, she’s great, she just made the pep squad.” The contrast of expectation and reality sets Lydia as a multifaceted character. Lydia is secretive and wants to maintain her perfect image to her family. However, her parents’ oblivion to her situation discredits their knowledge of Lydia, complicating the investigation of her death.

Ng continuously introduces obstacles- in her autopsy, “it tells him that there were no intoxicants in her blood, that there were no signs of foul play or sexual trauma, but that suicide, homicide, or accident could not yet be determined.” The continuous lack of evidence sets a mysterious tone and paints Lydia’s death as abnormal and perplexing. This sets the reader a challenge that intensifies the desire of learning the cause of Lydia’s death. Therefore, just like an oven induces chemical reactions, the mysteries of Lydia uses the existing facts to give a reason for the audience to be interested.

Ta- Daaaaaaa!!!! 

The way Ng brought Lydia to life by portraying her physical features, mother daughter relationship and perplexing secrets is like a dense, moist cake to the brain. Like a cake, the ingredients created a delicious dessert with flavorful taste and fluffy texture. Next time, analyze a character by comparing him or her to a delectable cake to be your own literary chef!

Isn't that just so visually satisfying.....