This week’s reading theme is “mother & brothers”, so I think the reading for this week should cover topics over family relationship. I decided to read Beccah which is a story about a Korean American family that has a mother and a daughter.
The plot of this story is somewhat confusing at first. At times I had to re-read certain parts more than once to get the meaning. In addition, I had to look up the biography of the author. Reading her biography really clears things out. So it happened that the author is born in the US and her mother never taught her any Korean so that she can mix in with the rest of the people. That is an interesting point. Because Beccah has always thought that her mother was crazy at times when she just started to dance and sing for no reason. Especially whenever, her mother confessed to her “I killed your father” that she think her mother is out of her mind (Keller 192).
Beccah believes that her mother is possessed by ghosts and spirits at these times. And one of the indicators is whenever her mother “confessed” her “crime.” Beccah did not think much about the motivations or reasons behind her mother’s craziness. She just assumed that her mother is crazy. This is to show that her mother did not really teach Beccah anything about Korean culture. I derive this from the fact that the author’s mother chose not to teach her Korean. I do not know why her mother chose to do so but it is interesting regardless. Maybe her mother was hoping to make the daughter’s status closer to white people. Anyway, the lack of understanding of Korean cultures demonstrates that fact.
In any case, Beccah finally realized what was wrong with her mother went Auntie Reno found out about this. I personally have seen this kind of phenomenon before, I do not know what to think of it because you can’t tell if people are faking or not. Anyway, Auntie Reno explained to Beccah:”All my life, I heard about people like dis. You know, my maddah said dis kinda things supposed to run in our family, but I nevah seen anyone wit dah gift dis strong.” (Keller 199) Only then that Beccah understands more about the Korean culture which she came from. The point is that between different generations, there are not only different ways of thinking, but also different culture backgrounds. I think the author want to show the lesson which she learned from this incident.
Before that point, Beccah was just an American born Korean girl who did not know anything about her own cultures. She did not care to find out about it. She did not understand her mother, which led to her belief that her mother was crazy at times. This is understandable because as we discussed in previous classes – parents and children do not view the world the same way. But only by realizing the culture of her mother, Beccah was able to love and respect her more. She finally came to full realization when one day her mother told her that she was praying for her father’s spirit and not crazy. It is funny how Beccah has always thought that her mother was crazy for all that time. But ever since she realized what was going, she loves her mother even more.
The story ends with a scene where Beccah was reminiscing about her mother at which point it has already been thirty years later. I think the last sentence is very interesting “My mother is dead” (Keller 202). My interpretation for this is that Beccah just could not get rid of the thoughts about her mother for all these time even though she has been dead for a long time. This is to show how great the love Beccah has for her mother.
Hi Quan,
ReplyDeleteI just feel the same that for sometimes, I had to re-read certain (almost all) parts again and again to get the meaning. It’s smart to read the authors’ brief introductions based on the topics of our required readings often locate at the bottom of the first page of our reading. In this way, we can not only learn the background of this story first, and also gain our knowledge about this author. It’s a good way to start of the reading. And also, I do think that reading our main class blog posted by Dr. K should be really helpful for you better understanding of the reading. Because she would always summarize the weekly reading main ideas, and also provide us many clues for like how to start with or organize of our blogs based on the required readings.
Ok, Let’s back to your post based on the reading. I have read almost everyone’s blogs for the last week’s. The reason was that I kinda felt confused with the required reading. I was wondering if someone could make it explained or give any developed thoughts, but till now, there is still a couple of stand points unclear to me. After reading the class’ posts, I think people are like the same and kind of in the middle between the known and un-known sides. However, it’s interesting to realize that including you, most people said in their blogs that Akiko (Beccah’s mother) is poor, making people show sympathetic on it, and we can also see like a character with love.
Similarly, you posted that the Akiko’s behavior affected Beccah, and the most important was that you built up their mother-daughter relationship in order of thinks happened, throughout your last week’s blog. And come to the end of your blog, I totally agree with you for the standpoint that Beccah greatly loves her mother at time.
Additionally, to satisfy the cultural things we’ve been talking about in Asian American Literature all semester, I still want to say that the covered previous life of Akiko’s (Korean history events, and Korean culture) helped on and off with the mother-daughter’s relationship. And I bet as long as the Akiko’s story when she was Korean being realized, the main class’ blogs may turn to more funny to read.
Hi Q,
ReplyDeleteWhat does the picture you attached here mean? I guess you might have no idea about what the author was trying to say after you’d already read through for couple of times though…So, Did you mean to illustrate your feeling at that moment by this picture? Or not…
I like your blog for this week because you more likely wrote out a story based on the topic of family relationship, rather than a reflection on others’ writing. Because you made really your own thoughts inside of your blog, and from another point of view, I read something new and interesting.
It was good for you to intentionally and unintentionally try to explain why Akiko changed crazy like that and also confessed to her daughter Beccah, that she killed her father after years her father being dead.
Being kinda like a sacrifice, the so-called Asian ”ghosts and spirits” protected the motivation or reasons of her mother’s craziness hidden behind. The truth is, as you declared in your blog that the lack of understanding of Korean cultures demonstrates the fact. I like that!
However, Beccah didn’t really mean to not care about her root of nation and own culture things. By contrast, she care about it and was hoping that she could understand her mother (her abnormal change) and find the way to help out her mother. From this point, it’s obvious to see she loved her mother, and I’m certain that she would always put her mother inside of her heart as the most important!
Everybody does love his/her mother, I think. However, because the author’s mother suffered during her pervious life as a Korean comfort women, this mother gain all of our sympathetic about her unpleasant experiences. As a mother, she gained more love from her children than other mother can do.
Anthony