Quy Pham

Writing for Life

2/12/17

1. What is the situation of the essay? What is the story?

Situation: An immigrant boy, dealing with helping his family by working on houses and

attending school, comes to struggle with the vastness of time and space.

Story: This boy shows both imagination, pleasure, and creativity as well as a feeling of

depersonalization in the strict goals/tasks he feels dictated to complete. His focus on these goals

seems to unknowingly detract from other aspects in his life. However, a discovery and struggle

with the vastness of the universe suggests to him that there could be no meaning or value in

completing his goals, and he undergoes a difficult transformation to better appreciate life despite

the cold eternity that lies beyond life.

2. Think about the struggle to turn raw material into experience. Focus on one place in the

essay where you think that happened. How did you do it? (If you cannot answer this, you

probably only have raw materialhow can you turn it into experience?)

It started from the very first sentence and was not made more apparent until the end of the first

paragraph as well as the second paragraph that my language and choice of information

(especially with the introducing of my family background) was selective for a certain purpose.

And I also continued this through the paper with the wordplay on son and sun, metaphor for the

horizon swallowing the sun as discovery of the universe (horizon also reminds me of the event

horizon, a term used in study of black hole) swallowing myself, with the notion of scale with the
human giants discovering the small cockroaches and a small human discovering the vastness of

time and space. Same with the VHS tape. I try to develop continuity with similar language

through different situations, as if to view something new through familiar words/ideas for the

reader.

3. What kind of persona are you developing in this essay? In what way is this narrator both

you and not you? Be specific in your answer.

Even as I speak from younger Quy in those scenes, the reflection of details and use of language

from modern Quy seems more intelligent and informed than younger Quy was. The persona I am

developing seems to be expressing his thoughtful, hurt, and hopeful emotions about family

matters and personal philosophy. He is not me in that I am no longer pushing through those

conflicts, but instead I have pushed through those conflicts and am conjuring up old me to do so.

However, he is still me because my personal philosophy is built on the foundation of those

events then, and from my personal philosophy stems my approach and desire to activities I

engage in today. My desire to become a doctor stems from this acquired thought process as does

my passion for the violin and my goals today towards other people.