The Paper Menagerie Short Story Analysis and Reflection

 Dalura, Martina C.                                                                           October 14, 2022

BSEd-English 3a

 

The Paper Menagerie

 by Ken Liu

Throughout the short story of the paper menagerie, it mirrors out how racism and prejudice affect one’s self-esteem. To think that racism can cause entirely rejecting of one’s own culture was a sad truth. Jack was a son of two races of Chinese and American whom the protagonist of the story. Jack denied learning his culture and didn’t realize how important it was to him until his mother died. Jack’s mother signed up for an introduction service that matches American men and Asian woman. Jack’s father was an American race. Susan was Jack’s college girlfriend who found out the box containing Jack’s paper animals. Lastly, Mark as the antagonist of the story who criticized Jack’s paper animals. This is when the denial of Jack’s culture started.

 

The short story was created by Ken Liu.  It was when the denial of Jack to her mother’s nationality cannot be blamed to him nor to his parents. The sheer prejudice and bullying were factors why Jack totally reject his Chinese race. It was a cultural conflict when Mark’s action calling Jack’s creation a “Chinese trash” causing Jack to entirely deny his Chinese culture. Jack struggle then to accept his culture. Her mother pushed him to remember to take out his paper animals on Qingming. Later on, Jack’s mom died from cancer, and it was a sad moment and the fact that it was his mother. On Qingming, Jack’s paper tiger come to life again and reveals a letter hidden. The conflict of the story was man vs self. It was Jack who had a struggle accepting his Chinese race. Also, its underlying theme activity were resentment, acceptance and love. Later then accepted his Chinese race. The story took place in Connecticut, US.

 

The paper magical animals or the paper tiger symbolized Chinese culture and his childhood. Culture defines the way of living. Despite hardship of embracing own’s culture, Jack at the end still accept his side of being Chinese and finally realized that he loved her mother back. I believed that regret is always at the end. We don’t know what is coming in the future and death is inevitable to happen. The story made me realized that embracing one’s culture is important. Our culture described the totality of us as a person. The story just reminds us not to neglect our own culture but to accept it at any means.

 

She might as well be from the moon.

(Reflection)

 

I believed that Jack seemed to realized that her mother was far distant from him and that he believed that her mother was now in the existence of the moon. He finally came to realized that he loved her mother back. It made me realized that what is done is done. It is already in the fact that sometimes we can’t get over and moved on to what we commit earlier. There is this saying that states “regret is at the end.” Sometimes, we came to realized that regret happened if someone left, then we came to learn its value and importance. In connection with the story, Jack helped himself accept that her mother is far away from him. By the time he saw her letter on Qingming, he began to know the underlying truth from her mother and saw a hidden letter of the paper tiger that makes him curious of knowing it’s meaning since it was written in Chinese. After realizing and reflecting what he had done, at the end he still reconnects and accept his tradition. He hoped that even though his mother’ was not on his side anymore, he still loved him.