The Unwanted Character Analysis

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“From the numerous stories I was told growing up, mostly by my grandparents, I came to understand that my mother built the house during her pregnancy with me, motivated by the idea of having her first baby in her own home”(5-6). Kien Nguyen states this in the first chapter of his memoir, The Unwanted, when he is remembering his first memory, which is the happiest one from his childhood. Most of Kien’s childhood in Saigon after the fall to the communists is far from happy. Kien is known as a half-breed, to everyone but a selective few, during the Vietnam War. Kien and his family go through many difficult problems that most families never would have to worry about. Since he is a half-breed and everyone in his family is a capitalist, he is going…show more content…
One morning when Madame Khoun goes to wake up Kien, she notices that something is wrong. She asked Kien how he was feeling and he answered fine, she still insisted that something was wrong, “‘Are you sure? You don’t look fine to me.’ There was a moment of silence before she went on in a voice filled with worry. ‘Tell me what’s wrong. It has been several weeks, you can’t possibly still be upset about Lulu’” (132). Madame Khoun feels horrible about what she did to Kien’s dog. She has the mother instinct that all mothers have, she knows when something is wrong with her children. Madame Khoun leaves her children with her sister while she takes off. When Madame Khoun returns, Kien tells her about the fight between him and his cousin, “Under the pale streetlights, I showed her the bumps and contusions Tin had left on my back while Jimmy relived the potato story. Her face registered pain and anger, making her skin redden like blazing coal”(174-175). Madame Khoun got very angry because no one would help her or her children. Madame Khoun then marches over to her sisters house to demand an explanation of why this
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