One of three essays written for the final for Asian American Literature where I compare Hagedorn’s Dogeaters and Phan’s We Should Never Meet.
Dogeaters and We Should Never Meet have untraditional narrative structure. Dogeaters was a book that I did not particularly enjoy reading, but have a difficult time expressing a reason why I did not enjoy the book. When reading it a second time when writing the final, I found myself growing more appreciative of the novel. On the other hand, We Should Never Meet was a short story that I really enjoyed reading, though it was emotional enough that I would likely not willingly subject myself to the emotional rollercoaster again.
Final essay prompt lost
Despite short story collections and novels having wildly different structures, it is difficult to determine the effect the differing structures have on their ability to dramatize certain themes or subjects. This difficulty arises because it is often difficult to determine whether an author’s choice is a consequence of the medium or a conscious choice by the author. Despite this difficulty, it may be possible to discern these subtle differences in medium by considering Aimee Phan’s We Should Never Meet and Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, two works that are intentionally structured more similarly to each other than other short story collections and novels. These two works, despite their structural similarities, discuss a variety of different issues, set in different periods and times, and offer different perspectives. Both works address the issue of diaspora, albeit differently, and, despite their similar structure, their dramatization of the issue reveals some differences that the structure of novels and short story collections have on interpretation. Namely, short story collections, by virtue of each story needing to act as a standalone and having the freedom to eschew previous narratives, create a barrier to the span of material that can be considered for any particular interpretation.
Dogeaters and We Should Never Meet are a novel and a short story collection that are quite different from similar works of their respective mediums. The latter is a collection of short stories that openly invites the reader to connect the various characters together into one coherent understanding. The former is a novel that refuses to let any single character carry the burden of the plot, opting to tell its story through multiple characters and devices like newspaper clippings. Together, these two works push the boundaries of their forms to be more similar to the other. Despite their similarities in form, they take different approaches to addressing the issue of diaspora.
Rio may be considered the main diasporic character in Dogeaters. The reader learns, near the end of the book, that her portions of the narrative are affected by her long absence from the Philippines, her mother having taken her to the United States for school. Her memories of her old homeland are tinted, rose colored. “My father is right. The house with its shuttered windows looks smaller than I remember, and dingy” (245). But the flaws in Rio’s memories are not simply contained to her descriptions of her home in the Philippines, they also affect her recall of major and minor events. Her cousin Pucha is forced to correct her, listing a number of mistakes in Rio’s account (248). Even if readers ascribe these flawed recollections to be a result of Rio’s longing for her homeland, diaspora plays a small role in the story. While all of Rio’s accounts may be reexamined for their accuracy, Rio’s accounts account for a small proportion of the novel. This is opposed to the role diaspora plays in Phan’s short story collection.
In We Should Never Meet, there appear to be a couple reoccurring characters in a number of the short stories. Mai and Huan appear in both “Motherland” as well as “Emancipation” and Kim and Mai appear in both “Emancipation” and “We Should Never Meet.” All three characters find themselves orphans in America, displaced from Vietnam as a result of the war. Their displacement from their homeland prominently factors into each of the short stories. In “Motherland,” Huan and Mai grapple with their country of heritage when they go to visit. Mai and Kim confront their feelings about their mothers in “Emancipation” and “We Should Never Meet,” respectively.
However, despite the different portrayals of diaspora and its effects in Dogeaters and We Should Never Meet, it is not immediately clear how the structures of novels affect these portrayals. After all, one can easily imagine a novel where diaspora plays a prominent role or a short story collection where diaspora plays a small factor. However, the difference manifests itself when reader’s expectations influence their interpretation.
Dogeaters invites readers to consider issues of wealth and its effects on diaspora and can do so by contrasting Rio and Joey. Dogeaters has the ability to invite this comparison despite the characters not interacting by simply giving only Rio and Joey first person narration. Furthermore, by setting the two characters in the same timeline and reality, readers are given a clear message about diaspora and the role class divide plays into it. Joey wants to leave but cannot, while Rio wants to return despite having the privilege to leave.
Short story collections are not so easily offered this affordance. Simply by distinguishing stories as distinct, rather than continuous, authors impose an additional constraint in the interpretation of their work. Consider Mai and Huan’s friendship in “Emancipation and in “Motherland.” In “Emancipation,” Mai shares her essay about her mother with Huan and they have a small discussion about their parents. In “Motherland,” Huan is hesitant to discuss their orphan status because they had never really talked about it. To a reader, this slight difference may be written off as a result of the short story format. Because these two stories are structured so that they could be considered individually, readers may find that the two stories have similar, but ultimately distinct realities and characters. This is convenient for the author, as any dissimilarities between stories may not need to be accounted for.
While the examples used to demonstrate the differences in medium are slight examples, they reflect something inescapable about mediums. A medium primes the audience as to how to act, behave, and interpret the work. Simply by choosing a medium, authors make this conscious choice and are given the freedom and constraints that medium afford them.