Genre
Novel
Setting and Context
The novel is set in the 1950s, starting in China's Jiangsu province to America, written in cultural acclimatization, racial discernment, and conventionality of societal customs.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narrative
Tone and Mood
Dreadful, expectant, confident, joyous
Protagonist and Antagonist
Ralph Chang is the protagonist of the story.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is that Ralph does manual jobs such as killing chickens despite being an educated engineer in the US. Ralph faces a hard life in which he does not manage to have shelter and other basic needs.
Climax
Ralphs works very hard with his wife, and they become very successful in America to the extent of buying a good home and having a good life, despite the earlier hard life.
Foreshadowing
The meaning of Ralph's given name 'Lai Fu' meant fortune, and it foreshadowed his successful life in the United States of America. Despite the challenges, Ralph emerged victorious in his career in America and became very successful.
Understatement
Being an immigrant in America is understated. For instance, Ralph is Chinese, and he is discriminated against. However, given equal opportunities, immigrants have the potential of achieving great things.
Allusions
The story alludes to the unfair treatment of immigrants in the USA.
Imagery
The images of New York before and after Theresa’s arrival portray the imagery of sight.
Paradox
The paradox of immigrants is evident throughout the book. Immigrants are treated as inferior beings and discriminated against in all aspects. However, immigrants such as Grover are property millionaires, which disapproves the narrative that immigrants are incapable of succeeding in life.
Parallelism
There is parallelism between poverty and the mistreatment of black Americans.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
Poverty is incarnated as harsh.
