Character Cooking: An Art of Recipes

Character Cooking: An Art of Recipes

Baking a narrative, like any recipe, requires specific ingredients and techniques. Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng, chronicles the struggles and inner workings of a family that has lost a child, making it perfect proof of a combination of systems, mechanisms, and formulas hidden in authorial choices. If the definition of a recipe is observed as “a series of ingredients and instructions leading to an expected outcome”, these methods can be easily identified in Ng’s writing. The conflict between Marilyn’s recipe for a successful life and her mother’s builds Marilyn’s character and is the reason for her restlessness and unhappiness.  

Doris Walker, Marilyn’s mother, is the first of the characters to follow a recipe in the hope of creating a lady’s ideal life. Despite having all the necessary elements and being an expert housewife, Mrs. Walker was ultimately unsuccessful, and became a pitiful image of what could have been. Her recipe was simple and achievable, consisting of three main ingredients: a home, a husband, and children. When combined and balanced, those three pieces would form the life expected of and sought by women in the forties and fifties. 

We know little of Mrs. Walker’s early life other than she was a skilled cook, housekeeper, and entertainer; she was thoroughly prepared for the life she wanted, and with a husband and daughter, had essentially attainted it. Only when her husband leaves for good does this dream evaporate into thin air. Instead of spiraling in despair, Mrs. Walker clings to the image she built for herself and never wavers. Marilyn remembers “her mother’s insistence on changing clothes before dinner, though there was no longer a husband to impress with her fresh face and crisp housedress” (Ng 28). She continues this empty act for the rest of her life, resolute in her ways, as though it is the only thing holding her together. Little did she know that the botched result of a perfect recipe would become the insurmountable divide between her and her daughter.

A stellar student and trailblazing rebel, Marilyn had everything she needed to reach her dream, yet her progress was cut short by marriage and children. Like her mother’s, her recipe was straightforward and, miraculously, feasible. It was comprised of getting good grades, going to college, and applying to medical school, all in order to achieve her goal of becoming a doctor. 

In high school, she was at the top of her class, setting the curve for every physics test. Even as a sophomore Marilyn was radical: she asked to be switched from home economics, a required course for girls her age, to shop - a request unheard of at the time. Above all, she loved surprising those who thought her aspirations were ludicrous for a woman. While taking chemistry at Radcliffe College, “her results were the most accurate; her lab reports the most complete. By midterm, she set the curve for every exam, and the instructor had stopped smirking” (Ng 27). With an outstanding resume and unyielding momentum, she was equipped to complete her education in a matter of years. 

During her junior year, all is suddenly halted when Marilyn leaves school to get married and have a child, naively thinking she can resume her studies at a later time without a hitch. Fast forward eight years, she finally makes her future a priority. But after having spent all that time managing a household of five “she couldn't remember how to write a paper, how to take notes; it seemed as vague and hazy as something she had done in a dream” (Ng 77). Instead of demotivating her, this realization renews her drive to reach her goal and have a life different from her mother’s.

Marilyn’s abhorrence for her mother’s existence and ambitions is the singular most driving force in her life. Whether because she saw how poorly it could end or because she thinks herself better, Marilyn is propelled by Mrs. Walker’s pathetic feminine ideal to create her own path, her own recipe. She chooses to become a doctor because “it was the furthest thing she could imagine from her mother's life, where sewing a neat hem was a laudable accomplishment and removing beet stains from a blouse was a cause for celebration” (Ng 30). She hates the idea of being reduced to a simple “homemaker", so picks the polar opposite: a powerful, respectable career. 

In a moment of reflection, she realizes she has acquired what she loathes most: “the life her mother had wanted for her, the life her mother had hoped to lead herself: husband, children, house, her sole job to keep it all in order” (Ng 78). This is the source of Marilyn’s discontent and restlessness; she is furious with herself, not only for letting her dream slip by, but for falling into the role she promised to escape. 

Consequently, when Dr. Wolff, being a female doctor of the same age as Marilyn, proves to her a different outcome is still possible, she makes plans to finish her degree. Every night thereafter, she does a motivational reading of the Betty Crocker cookbook, the epitome of her “mother’s small and lonely life” to remind herself “You don't want this, there will be more to your life than this” (Ng 97). The fact that she then leaves her family to once again pursue her studies affirms that her true purpose is to defy what her mother represented and to prove she is capable of making her dream a reality.

The two recipes at play, one failed and the other interrupted, are so staunch in their foundation that their conflict drives a character, and therefore the plot, forward. Though they may merely be literary devices, they reveal to us more than just the core force in Marilyn: just like cooking recipes, life recipes don't always work out. And just like cooking recipes, life recipes are tweaked or revamped by each generation. For the sake of peace, harmony, and healthy relationships, you shouldn't resist that change, or you'll trade development for discord.

How the Lee Family was Already a Flawed System

In Everything I Never Told You, author Celeste Ng creates the Lee family: a "perfect" family system that collapses with the death of Lydia, their child. Ng portrays the Lees as a stereotypical happy family with genuine emotion, dreams, and goals for their children. The family went through their small issues together as a tight-knit community. They didn't have it all, but Ng depicts the Lees as a happy, working family system. Ng, however; only depicts the Lees as having a stable family structure to create contrast with their life after Lydia’s death; in reality, the Lee family system had many problems, threatening to disrupt the system even without Lydia's death.

Ng glorifies the times that the Lee family had before Lydia’s death to show contrast with the Lee’s life after. The only way to see what the Lee family was like before their daughter went missing is through flashbacks. Ng writes one telling paragraph which really glorifies the previous life of the Lees. She depicts a typical day at the beach for the Lee family: “Nath and Lydia would don swimsuits and spread towels across the grass, [...] while their parents would come too.”(105) These great memories of the Lees’ previous life are meant to create contrast between the Lee's old and new lives. The Lees go from frolicking on the beach to the parents constantly arguing, with their surviving children feeling ignored. Marilyn especially takes the tragedy badly, becoming angry and hysterical at the investigators trying to find out what happened to Lydia. The Lee family system at this point is clearly broken, with no fix in sight. By glorifying the previous life of the Lee family and accentuating the troubles in their system following Lydia’s death, however, you could miss out on how flawed the system already was.

Hannah especially feels ignored while her parents argue

Though it seems that the Lees had a perfect system connecting the family before Lydia’s death, there were always underlying problems that could've broken the system at any time. For example, James’s affair with his teacher’s assistant, Louisa, proves preexisting problems in the Lee family. At one point, he meets her at lunchtime in her apartment. She “leads him straight to the bedroom,” and James senses that “everything about her is different,”(71) implying that his affair had been going on before Lydia was found. Despite his affair, Ng still depicts James as perfectly happy in the family, which is clearly not the case. The affair is definitely a problem, but James wouldn't have cheated on his wife in the first place if there weren't already problems in his family. If Marilyn ever found out about James and Louisa, it would have destroyed the supposedly perfect Lee family system before Lydia ever died. Looking deeper, however, it becomes clear that this is just one of several major problems underlying in the Lee family.

Ng makes the Lee family look like a perfect family frolicking on the beach, but it actually has many problems.

The things that Lydia kept from her parents were threatening to the Lee family system.  James and Marilyn raised Lydia to be a perfect child, and they were oblivious to all of Lydia’s vices until after her death. She smoked and snuck out to be with Jack at times behind her parents’ back. When Jack recalls the last time he saw Lydia to police, he remarks that “we were sitting in my car and smoking,”(67) but her parents never imagined that Lydia would smoke or misbehave in any way. Every child does things that their parents wouldn't approve of, but the Lees expected their daughter to be perfect. Marilyn especially had specific dreams for Lydia; that she would be “a grown woman, confident and poised, [...] a doctor.”(57) Had Marilyn found out about her daughter’s true nature or relationship with Jack, the Lee family system would have been damaged forever. While it is easy to overlook problems in the Lee family before Lydia’s death, the supposedly perfect system was plagued with issues that could have blown up at any time.

The Lees had a perfect idea of who they wanted their child to be, and were oblivious that their child was not perfect.

Although the Lee family was devastated after Lydia’s death, it was doomed to fall apart one way or another. Ng’s decision to paint the Lees as a perfect, solid family system before their daughter’s death makes it easy to overlook their problems. The family system was under stress from both Lydia’s secrets and James’s affair, either of which could have ruined the system before Lydia turned up dead. By glorifying the Lee’s previous life, Ng shows how badly Lydia’s death affects the family. In reality, however, the Lees lead a far from perfect family, and barely even knew their daughter. Idealized memories of the Lees’ original family system fail to recognize the system’s numerous issues.

Celeste Ng’s Recipe To Write a Tragedy

Three seemingly unrelated words, system, mechanism, and recipe, can be organized in a similar structure as an archery target. The outermost rim of the archery target is system, which is a set of different components connected together. The system of a car, for instance, is the wheels, handle, engine, break, and all the other parts in the car working together as a whole. The inner layer of the archery target is mechanism, which is a specific component of a system. Going back to the car analogy, different mechanisms refer to the individual parts of a car listed above like wheels, handle, engine, break, etc. The bull’s-eye of the archery target is recipe, which precisely lists the ingredients and detailed directions to operate a system. An individual mechanism in the car system, such as the engine, follows its own recipe that provides directions for its task. To connect all three terms together, recipe provides specific directions for different mechanisms that form a system as they operate collaboratively. This structure can also be seen in the book, Everything I never told you, written by Celeste Ng, particularly in the author’s process of writing a tragedy. The system, in other words, the theme of the book that Ng intends to write, is a tragedy. All the different scenes in her book work together and result in a tragic story. She specifically applies the mechanism of placing her characters into tragic situations of failing their American Dreams. Throughout the story, Ng elaborately follows her own recipe of devastating her pitiful characters, as Marilyn fails to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor and as James is continuously racially discriminated.

Marilyn, the mother of three children, fails to achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a doctor as she sacrifices her life to her family. She always had high hopes of being an intelligent and independent woman. Ng initially emphasizes Marilyn’s excitement for her future career by highlighting her competence, since “she’d had the highest grade in her class, set the curve on every test” (Ng 26). Nevertheless, Marilyn’s future gradually becomes opaque as she gets married and starts a family. Her family rather becomes an obstacle in pursuing her career than a reliability. After searching for a job uncertainly but hopefully, Marilyn’s friend who had previously promised her a job as his assistant later replies, “I had no idea you were actually serious about that. With your children and your husband and all” (Ng 93). Due to the history of discrimination against women, females being unable to continue their career after they start a family is still a common and relatable situation for many readers. Regardless of one’s gender, everyone has an aspiring dream that does not want to be hindered. However, the responsibility that is expected for women to keep the house at home inevitably forces them to sacrifice their future. Marilyn’s relatable depression makes her situation even more notably tragic, as it’s a dilemma that numerous women still undergo.

James, Marilyn’s husband, falls in a predicament as he watches his son getting bullied due to his race, while escaping from racial discrimination was what James has been working for all his life. James is a perfect representation of immigrants in America who were innocent believers of the American Dream. As it was a common scene in the 20th century, James has been severely discriminated against because of his ethnicity as an Asian. Distressed by his endless life as the jest of his class, James even decides to assimilate as much as possible by isolating himself from his Asian background: “he asked his parents for permission to walk to and from school by himself,” and “when they did family tree projects in class, he pretended to forget the assignment rather than draw his own complicated diagram” (Ng 44). After all those countless years of aspiring to be included in the American society, a beautiful white girl, Marilyn finally comes and brightens his life. James’s relationship with Marilyn was “as if America herself was taking him in” (Ng 45) and made James feel finally accepted to the American society. Nevertheless, all his effort is torn down in a flash, and his illusion is disproved, as he watches his son being racially discriminated by his friends at a swimming pool. While Nath, who was Marco in the game Marco Polo, was playing with the children in the pool, they eventually “circled the shallow end, splashing the water with their hands, and Nath moved from one side to the other, following the sounds of motion. Marco. Marco. A plaintive note in his voice now” (Ng 90). Watching his own son getting bullied, James agonizes since his son’s ethnicity that’s making him an outcast is unchangeable. After separating himself from his own dear family for much of his life in order to escape from racial discrimination, this incident finally proved that he has not in fact achieved his goal. Getting bullied in the society solely because of one’s ethnicity is also a common issue in present society that also makes James’s failure more relatable and pitiful.

Ng successfully follows her recipe to write a tragedy, situating Marilyn and James in such devastating situations; their relatable tragedies lead the readers to fully empathize with them. An ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle once said that “A tragedy is the imitation of an action that is so serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in appropriate and pleasurable language; in a dramatic rather than narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions” (Poetics.com). In addition, Aristotle claims that Tragedy aims at representing men as better than in actual life; the real tragedy is when those good people face misfortune. The meaning of a tragedy that Aristotle describes perfectly suits the tragedy which Ng wrote. Marilyn and James are two ordinary good people, as Aristotle described, who simply wanted to either stand out or get equally treated as others, despite her gender and his race. After all, the characters’ failures are equivalent to the author’s success of following her recipe for mechanisms to structure her system of a tragic story.

Everything I Want for You: Helicopter Parenting as the Mechanism to the American Dream

            Growing up the child of immigrants, I always felt a certain pressure to succeed: to make my parents get a return on their investment of leaving their families behind and coming to this country. This pressure was placed on me (and my brother, and my sister) because my parents thought it the best way for them to achieve their American Dream. Now that's a really big concept-- what the heck is an American Dream anyway? To my parents, I think it's the ability to give your children more than what you had-- whether or not they want that. Because of this, I saw clear parallels between my parents and the parents in Celeste Ng's novel Everything I Never Told You in the mechanisms they use to achieve the American Dream.

James Lee is very much like my father. From his childhood, it is clear that James’s version of the American Dream is to be seen simply as an American, while for my father it has been to blend in-- not make any waves. To achieve this Dream, therefore, James’s mechanism is to assimilate to American culture. But the hardships James quickly faces, such as Marilyn’s mother rejecting him on their wedding day simply because he is an Asian man, proves that James is unable to achieve his ideal American Dream and so James attempts to overcome this by living vicariously through his son Nathan. My father did this to my brother through activities like baseball and ensuring that he was getting good grades and staying out of "trouble". However, both James's and my father's constant pressure to achieve the American Dream through their sons ultimately fails, as “something between them already broken” (Ng, 134), thus halting the progress of their mechanisms.

The American Nightmare

Marilyn Lee, fittingly, is like my mother, as they see the American Dream as the ability to be and do whatever they want. However, the traditional gender roles that dictate that women must be mothers and wives before individuals keep both Marilyn and my mother from achieving their Dream. Because of this, they too turn to living vicariously through their children, specifically in their daughters. Just as the men do, this mechanism too is harmful because the “weight of everything tilting toward her [Lydia] was too much” (Ng, 154), which may have contributed to Lydia’s eventual death. Now, neither my sister nor I are dead, but the depression and anxiety that have built up in us over the years illustrates that the mechanisms our mother used inadvertently kept her from pursuing her American Dream.

I don't think there is any right mechanism to achieving the American Dream, although some (like being a white male) do make the Dream much more achievable. Regardless, living vicariously through others is not the way to do it. I don't resent my parents for attempting to do that with my siblings and I, but as this video shows that in many ways their "helicopter parenting" was detrimental to us, just as it was to the kids in Everything I Never Told You.

The Hidden System

Picture a system. What does it look like? What is it doing? How would you describe it. When I think of a system I think of one sort of, complex whole with multiple parts that make it work. Some things that may pop into your mind are system such as systems in the body, or systems that work in a car.  In Celeste Ng's  Everything I never Told You, Ng takes this idea of a system and uses it to portray some of the major events and relation ships in the story. As in, we see how certain things develop between characters and events.  A great example of  a system is the relationship between James and his teaching assistant: Louisa. Like all systems there must be multiple parts working together to reach a complex goal or in this stories case, a tipping point or as I like to call it, "a point of no return."

From their first interaction in the novel its easy to see the chemistry the two of them share and the obvious affection for each other. But to understand how these parts work together, Ng is very particular about her writing. It's not so much these interactions as a whole, but the little things that we, as readers, need to key in on to understand the complication of their relationship. The subtle hints that Ng leaves in her writing to pave the way for these parts to eventually lead to that point of no return.  We see how the relationship between James and Louisa grows and their previous interactions which include blushing, and strong sexual tension, work together until their casual workplace relationship turns intimate. I have only read as far as chapter 5 so I have not been able to see how this system will continue to function. As I continued searching effortlessly for more examples of these systems that Ng has laid out I realized that the most important system was the entire novel itself. From the title name to the storyline, Lydia's disappearance and death is the output of the biggest system in the story. I guess I knew all along but It wasn't until I really started to ponder the hidden meanings in the framework of the novel that I came to realize this. As I continued reading the novel I focused on the life of Lydia and what may have caused her disappearance. These clues of sorts were mostly vocalized by Nath and they weren't anything major but subtle hints, similar to the relationship between James and Lydia these " parts" led to Lydia's death. Things that Nath described like Lydia having no friends, and pretending to be on the phone. Lydia was a loner, she felt ignored and had no true friends. When she passes there nothing left of her not even in her empty diaries. She left a trail of pieces that her family is now trying to put-together.  The same as finding the pieces of a system and connecting them together.

The hidden meanings in Ng's writing are prevalent all throughout. The idea of a system in writing is so intriguing because I found myself searching for things, and making connections to things I have never done before. Making these connections not only draws me to other conclusions but makes the reading more enjoyable and it a it easier for me to understand Ng's intentions. Ng is very intentional in her writing in that each minor detail tat you probably never picked up on is key in the development of major characters and their relationships. I have uncovered all this only by reading the first 5 chapters! I cant wait to see what else there is to uncover in Ng's path.

A System of Secrets

A successful system has multiple parts that feed into one larger product, and any strong piece of writing can be seen as a system. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is a three-piece system devised to make the reader feel like they are watching a movie for the second time. Each time you watch a movie, you collect more information that you did not catch before, which creates a deeper understanding of the events. In the novel, Ng strays from conventional writing style and structure to create a thoughtful system between the reader and the narrator composed of third person omniscience, nonlinear events, and repetition.

The book presents the omniscient point of view in the first line that reads, “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet” (Ng 1). More secrets are divulged to the reader throughout the plot, and each one creates two separate stories. One is based on the factual events of the characters in the novel, and another story is formed by the reader’s personal opinions on each character. The Lee family dynamic presents the need for the second story, as it is described as rigid and formulaic with no room for error, resulting in reserved children, a stifled wife, and a husband that will hold back his feelings to preserve his reputation.  Blurry emotional lines appear often in the Lee family, but they become clear for the reader through the knowledge of each character’s inner thoughts. However, it can be very frustrating as a reader to have so much information that the characters are blind to, because often times, the information could resolve the prevalent issues. When the officers are interrogating the Lee family about who Lydia could have been with on the day of her death, Nath thinks about Jack Wolff. Yet he does not act upon it and continues to pout and resent him immaturely. The case of Lydia’s death, a large factor in the plot-line, would be altered dramatically if each character knew what the reader knows. Conversely, the way the reader thinks about the characters and the system of the book in general would be much less had the point of view been changed.

Ng leaves out the prerequisites to important stories, which cause the reader to jump to conclusions without full understanding. she incorporates flashbacks and antagonistic ideas to pull a reader one way and then adds information that quickly changes the direction of the story. The mother, Marilyn, is made out to be a controversial character because there of the multiple stories that are told piece by piece, leaving out important justification in the first telling.  In chapter two, it is briefly mentioned that Marilyn had disappeared a few years back in an effort to “stand out” (Ng 25),  and the thought is put into the reader's head that Marilyn is a selfish, high maintenance woman that prioritizes herself over her duties as a mother and a wife. The majority of people would agree that Marilyn has accomplished the standard American Dream: she has a family with a reputation of success in the suburbs, she does not have to work, and and she has married a man that she loves despite any prejudices that have come about.  Considering her good fortune, it seems irresponsible and out of line to uproot herself without telling her family, and the reader is forced to sympathize with the rest of her family.  This idea lives for two chapters until chapter four, when the chain of events that take place directly before her departure are laid out for further analysis.  At a holiday party for James’ work, James asserts his male dominance over Marilyn when she inquires about a job with one of his colleagues, and it becomes apparent that this power dynamic is probably a common theme in their marriage. James’ egotistical reaction sparks concern of an unhealthy relationship, and a suppressed Marilyn suddenly becomes the sympathetic character.  Later in the chapter, she is writing a note to her family before she plans to leave them which reads, “I realize that I am not happy with the life I lead. I always had one kind of life in mind and things have turned out very differently” (Ng 100), and her apparent effort to communicate with her family makes her decision slightly more excusable.  Had the stories been presented in the reverse order, Marilyn’s reputation would not have been tainted, and there would be no doubt that James is the problematic character.

The repetition that takes place throughout the novel with both characters and events manipulates the reader’s thoughts in a way that allows Ng to control the predictions of the readers. The similarities between Lydia and Marilyn are stated more obviously in the first chapter, but there are also comparisons that can be drawn between the major events. The most obvious similarity is the power dynamic that is displayed through the romantic relationships. In chapter one, James’ teaching assistant, Louisa, enters his office, and the first detail given is that she is physically similar to his daughter Lydia.  Despite their arguably inappropriate actions while in the office, the original connection to his daughter causes the idea of an affair to be pushed to the back of the reader’s mind.  It is not until the next chapter that the thought becomes a threat to the rest of the storyline.  The story of how Marilyn and James met begins to form, and it impossible to ignore its connection to the beginning stages of James and Louisa’s relationship.  As a result, when the idea of Marilyn becoming a teaching assistant for another man emerges, it causes speculation that Ng is establishing a theme of disloyalty and that history will soon repeat itself for a third time.  By using the same outcome for multiple connected events, it becomes comfortable for the reader to start assuming the conclusion, leaving the reader vulnerable to the effects of the nonlinear piece of the system.

It is not the words that make an impact on the reader, but the lack and reuse of words that makes the novel so intriguing. The ability to separate the character’s feelings and thoughts from the actual events creates a debate over whether to trust the information given to the reader in confidence, or to stray from the biases and create an entirely new approach.  The secrets shared between the two parties would change the novel immensely if the characters had the same relationship, and the secrets are dispersed throughout the text in a very specific order, although out of order, to keep the reader constantly engaged and debating within themselves. The resulting controversy is used to fuel the search for connections between characters and events in an attempt to fill some of the gaps in the story, but the literary devices ultimately prevail and leave the reader feeling mislead, but encouraged to keep going. It is obvious that Ng made all of her literary choices very intentionally as they work together to form a perfect system.

James and the Giant TA

In Celeste Ng’s novel Everything I Never Told You, she describes how a Chinese - American family responds after discovering that their middle daughter, Lydia Lee, was tragically drowned in a lake. The news devastates the Lees and each member of the family finds reconciliation in their own way. Hannah, the youngest daughter visits the lake Lydia drowned in, Nath, the older brother, does some detective work to try to uncover the cause of her death, Marilyn spends hours upon hours in wandering around Lydia’s room, and James sleeps with his teaching assistant Louisa. Throughout this emotional story, Ng creates multiple recipes in her writing; Marilyn runs off for three months to receive her medical degree, Lydia’s death ruining her parents relationship, and Marilyn’s ignorant response to Lydia’s death are the three main ingredients that Ng mixes together to form a recipe that causes James to sleep with Louisa.

When Marilyn left James and the family for three months without warning, it proved to James their relationship was bound to fail, and provoked him to sleep with Louisa. After Marilyn’s mother died she needed to cope; however, since her mother disapproved of her marriage with a Chinese American man, talking to James was not an option. At this moment in the novel, Marilyn realizes that she is “not happy with the life [she] leads,” (86) and “is sad… about everything” (100). She dramatically decides to try to receive her medical degree, and without warning, she leaves her family for a whole summer. Marilyn’s act of total abandonment proved to James that their initial love for each other was gone, which is the first step of the recipe that changed their relationship forever, and caused James to sleep with Louisa.

Lydia’s death is another ingredient tossed into the novel that causes James and Marilyn's relationship to further fall apart. After the police visit the Lees to interview Nath - who, like Lydia, is also very lonely - Hannah witnesses her parents fight, and she “has never heard her parents fight before” (115). The death of their daughter creates conflict which they cannot resolve, and when James “leans in to kiss her, she flinches away as if his touch burned,” demonstrating that their initial love for each other,

which was filled with passion, has faded away (109). Their relationship continues to crack when Marilyn disrespects James James develops feelings for Louisa, his teaching assistant.

Marilyn’s reaction to Lydia’s death catalyzes James to sleep with Louisa. Marilyn enters a perpetual state of denial when a police officer tells her that they think Lydia committed suicide. She refuses to believe this and claims that “[her] Lydia would never have gone out in that boat alone” (117). She “berates the police with questions ” as she becomes “hysterical” (115). Her indignation and uncompromising attitude leads to a fight with James, which causes him to storm out. James hears the “palpable disgust in her voice,” which leads James to realize “how little she [thinks] of him” (116). His outlet to relieve his stress is Louisa who “gently, generously, miraculously opens her arms to him” (118). With her, James’ mind has “gone blissfully blank” and he “sleeps soundly for the first time in days,” (72) which is something that Marilyn cannot provide anymore.

Furthermore, Marilyn’s disrespect and ignorance is the final ingredient that leads James to sleep with Louisa. Marilyn suggests that James kowtows - to kneel and touch the ground with the forehead in worship or submission as a Chinese custom - to the police, which James perceives as a racial slur.

James knows that in her “ blur of fury” she didn’t “think twice about what she’s said” and didn’t understand that word’s effect on him (117). Three of the most important aspects of a relationship are love, communication and balance. If Marilyn can not understand how she affected James, then they have lost two out of the main three pillars of their relationship.

These three ingredients create a recipe for disaster, and break down James and Marilyn’s fragile relationship. Marilyn’s abandonment of James three years before Lydia’s death helped James rationalize sleeping with Louisa. He used Louisa to relieve himself from his sorrows. The death of a daughter broke down the parents’ marriage, which leads to the collapse of the entire family system.

How Not to Get Lost: Find a Central Element

All that one would need to do to make Celeste Ng's novel Everything I Never Told You would be to put together a couple of things in a logical manner that work together to complete a uniform goal. Ng uses the lake by the families house as a mechanism to bring about the story in a logical manner. First, Ng uses the lake to inform the family of their daughter’s death. Next, the lake provides the family with a source of comfort. Last, the lake provides insight into the family dynamics and provides a potential reason for Lydia’s death.

Who knew that chicken fried bacon could be a mechanism for the American palate?

With any great mechanism, there has to be a great beginning. Ng uses the lake as a way to inform the family of their daughter’s death. Ng starts the novel with “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet,” (Ng 1). Then Ng goes on to write “It’s not until early Thursday morning, just after dawn, that the police drag the lake and find her,” (Ng 24). Ng purposefully uses the lake as a cause of death for Lydia because the lake is near the family’s house, and every time the family passes the lake they will be reminded of their daughter’s death. Instead of having Lydia kill herself by hanging, Ng chooses Lydia to drown in the lake because the family has both good and bad memories from the lake. This inherently allows Ng to use the lake as a mechanism to expand on the story as a whole. The lake is at the center of the family’s dynamic and each of the family members are closer to the lake than others, depending on experiences. For Hannah, the lake serves as a mystery and a coping mechanism.

Then, Celeste Ng uses the lake as a coping mechanism for Hannah. Hannah, being the youngest member in the family, often lived in the shadows of her two older siblings. After Lydia’s death, her parents are not providing much comfort for Hannah, so to cope with the death, Hannah finds refuge at the lake. Although the lake is where her sister died, Hannah believes that picturing the steps that Lydia took to kill herself would make Hannah feel more at ease. “[Hannah] will set out in the boat, as Lydia must have. She will row to the middle of the lake, where her sister somehow ended up, and peer down into the water. Maybe then she’ll understand,” (Ng 105). Unlike her mother, Hannah thinks that the lake can be used as a resource to cope with Lydia’s death. Reenacting the steps that Lydia took helps Hannah understand why her sister did what she did (Just like the new Netflix series "13 Reasons Why"). Part of what makes this death so hard for the family is understanding why Lydia committed suicide. The parents thought that Lydia had everything going for her, but the siblings, Nathan and Hannah, have a different perspective on Lydia’s life as a whole. Hannah is making the right steps toward coping with Lydia’s death. Hannah accepts the fact that her sister is dead and is now focusing more energy on why she did what she did.

Likewise, the lake serves a mechanism for Ng to dive deeper into the Lee family dynamics. During some summers, the family would go out and enjoy a day at the lake. However, Ng stresses the fact that both parents would have to be in the right mood for everyone to be at the lake. “On the very best days – though those were very, very rare – their parents would come, too,” (Ng 105). This statement by the narrator inevitably makes the reader question why. For the author to use the same adjective twice next to itself, the point that the author is trying to make must be important. There seems to be some underlying factor within the family that makes it so rare for the whole family to go to the beach. Ng uses the lake as a specific example to further explain the dynamics of the Lee family. Experiences at the beach can provide some evidence as to why Lydia killed herself. Often times the only attention Hannah would get from her parents would be at the lake. This is to say that their attention must have been on one of the other kids when it was not on Hannah. Lydia must have been the center of attention in the family, which eventually pushed her to the breaking point. 

Lydia probably felt a little bit like this

Although there are many other mechanisms in Ng’s novel, ultimately, the most notable mechanism is the lake. First, Ng uses the lake to inform the family of their daughter’s death. Next, the lake provides the family with a source of comfort. Last, the lake provides insight into the family dynamics and provides a potential reason for Lydia’s death. Without the lake, the story may not have been as clear and logical. 

Everything I Never Told You or Intro to Psych?

An introduction to coping mechanisms using Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You

Celeste Ng’s first novel, Everything I Never Told You, follows a family during their struggle to accept the sudden death of Lydia Lee, the most beloved daughter of the family. In the case of any tragic event, individuals affected by the tragedy deal with their emotions using defense mechanisms that serve to make individuals feel better about unpleasant situations. Similarly, each character in Everything I Never Told You has his, her, or their own coping mechanism, a method through which they deal with the emotions that follow the loss of a family member. Ng effectively uses coping mechanisms as a device to subtly reveal the underpinnings of Lydia’s family members’ reactions to her death.

Marilyn: DENIAL and RATIONALIZATION

Denial: refusing to confront the truth about a situation by blocking it out of your head.

When the police inform her there were no signs of foul play involved in Lydia’s death, Marilyn rejects the evidence: “‘She would never have gone out on her own. I know she wouldn’t. Sneaking out in the middle of the night? My Lydia? Never.’” (Ng 108).

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Rationalization: attempting to find a more reasonable and easily acceptable explanation for why an event occurred, often in the form of an excuse.

Giving up on her academic dream is Marilyn’s biggest regret; hence, she cannot accept or understand why Lydia would give up her opportunity to pursue it. Marilyn refuses to confront the fact that Lydia willingly committed suicide and cope with the despair that accompanies the truth. Instead, Marilyn tunes into her confusion about Lydia forfeiting her chance by pushing the police to find a culprit despite the fact that Lydia is the perpetrator of her own death.

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Hannah: INTELLECTUALIZATION

Intellectualization: an attempt to take an unbiased stance and observe a situation.

Because Hannah is unsure of how to express her anger, she starts retracing Lydia’s last steps in an attempt to relieve her confusion about Lydia’s death: “She is furious with her sister for vanishing, bewildered that Lydia would leave them all behind...How could you, she would have thought, when you knew what it was like?...All she can think of now is: How? And: What was it like? Tonight she will find out” (Ng 102). As a young child, Hannah is innocent and does not understand why Lydia would abandon her family. Hannah’s confusion and frustration drive her to comb through every detail of Lydia’s life, from looking through Lydia’s room to reenacting what she did in her last moments. Like Marilyn, Hannah believes that finding an explanation will give her closure.

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Nath: PROJECTION

Projection: using someone or something else as the subject/receiver of negative emotions.

Nath blames Lydia’s death on Jack to avoid confronting his own guilt for not being there for Lydia when she needed it. Because Nath and Jack had conflicts in the past, Nath believes Lydia’s friendship with Jack is associated with her death: “[Nath] has been wrestling with the idea of calling the police himself, of telling them about Jack and how he must be responsible...they might have listened to Nath’s complaints...and come to similar conclusions” (Ng 112). To avoid grieving over the loss of his sister, Nath focuses on antagonizing Jack, assuming he was a bad influence on Lydia. Nath believes that by placing responsibility on someone else, he will no longer feel guilty for not being a resource for Lydia during her time of need.

http://interpersonal-compatibility.blogspot.com/
2015/09/projection-defense-mechanisms-by.html 

Thrillers are simple: just add (lake) water

Recipes come in all levels of difficulty. They could be as simple as mixing pre-made pasta with cheese powder and water, the concoction microwaved to perfection in 3 minutes, as in the case of Easy-Mac. Or they could involve more elaborate procedures, as in the case of monkey bread. This is where following the recipe is important; wander off the beaten path and your monkey bread will end up in Inferno. It’s safe to say that recipes, however complex or intuitive they are, give us spiritual guidance in the culinary world.

But recipes also have a place in the literary realm. Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You, for example, shares some common traits with our methodic friend. Instead of food, Ng’s ingredients are plot devices, and her instructions are word usage. Ng takes some common television tropes—a housewife, a cheater, a melodramatic death, and a bad boy, to name a few—and, through careful preparation, transforms them into a unique and telling portrait of a small-town Ohio family.

Making instant-thrillers is like making instant-noodles: you need water and a lot of it.

On page one, we are greeted by a warming line: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” (Ng 1) By the end of the first chapter, we discover that Lydia has drowned in a lake. Then we get Lydia’s autopsy, which reads like a set of instructions for cutting up steak. This is most apparent in “The chest is opened using a Y-shaped incision,” (Ng 69) wherein coroner had literally sliced apart Lydia’s flesh, but it also manifests in the mood conveyed through Ng’s writing style. Unlike first person, the third person omniscient limits the reader’s access to the entirety of characters’ emotions, and Ng uses the third person omniscient to powerful effect in Lydia’s autopsy, which is as much a physical report as it is a telling reflection of Lydia’s upbringing. The autopsy says “The cause of [Lydia’s] death as asphyxia by drowning.” (Ng 69) The report’s detached voice mirrors James and Marilyn’s obliviousness towards Lydia’s inner turmoil. I mean, it’s hard when your mom be like “Lydia, y u no get good grades and become doctor!?” and your dad be like “Lydia, you need to be popular. Don’t be a loser like me and Nath.”

Clearly, Lydia had drowned under her parents’ expectations well before she drowned in the lake. (Shout out to Ng. Good play-on-words.) Similarly, the autopsy’s matter-of-fact tone puts the reader in the position of a bystander, who is just as guilty as the perpetrator for being unable to pull Lydia out of despair. Like instructions in a recipe, Ng’s eloquent writing compels the reader to react and relate to her characters according to how she presents them. No, this isn’t the Jedi mind trick, this is just good writing.

If composition provides a sense of direction for the novel, the primary ingredients in Everything I Never Told You are found in Ng’s diction. For one, Ng’s word economy is praiseworthy. One might even say that Ng has learned well from Will Strunk’s The Elements of Style, or the writer’s scripture:

Indeed, every word of Ng’s novel is telling, and every sentence is constructed to further the plot.

Regarding Marilyn, Ng writes, “She cradles the bag, sliding the straps over her shoulders, letting its weight hug her tight.” (Ng 119) Through concision and precision, Ng has crafted distinct images of her characters. The words “cradle” and “hugs” show Marilyn’s affection for her daughter. Marilyn’s longing is so extreme that she imposes the memory of Lydia onto the book bag. However, she is reluctant to acknowledge her daughter’s flaws. Ng writes that Marilyn “drops both [the condoms and the Marlboros], as if she has found a snake, and pushes the book bag out of her lap with a thud.” (Ng 120) The analogy equating condoms and Marlboros with a snake reveal Marilyn’s shock. Nuances like these convalesce into the overarching theme of the story, as raw ingredients in a stew.

A key element in recipes, though not afforded the limelight of main ingredients, are spices. Spices contribute to the flavor, texture, and smell of the final product, and Ng has wisely included this auxiliary piece in her book. Racial slurs and stereotypes are Ng’s literary spices, adding novelty to traditional American settings. For example, the word “Oriental” is thrown around, as in “The subject is a well-developed, well-nourished Oriental female.” (Ng 69) The word “Oriental” conjures images of jade buddhas and silk robes, not humans. In the novel’s context, it is used to illustrate the zeitgeist of suburban Ohio in the ‘70s and reflect the status of the Lee family.

The Lees, particularly James, struggle with the identity conveyed by “Oriental.” James’s internalized racism is arguably more dangerous to his family than Middlewood’s systematic racism. When Nath hears “Chink can’t find China” (Ng 90) in the swimming pool, James to slap his son for being weak. James’s disdain for the victim of racism rather than for the perpetrators show that he has become accustomed to discrimination. In fact, James and Marilyn favor Lydia above Nath and Hannah for the same reason: Lydia’s blue eyes erase, or at least diminish, her Asian heritage. Western beauty standards influence James and Marilyn’s view on their children and threaten to divide their family. (Parents, get over it. Your daughter is not a Barbie doll.) De facto racism permeates every aspect of life, forcing the victims into a corner. Like spices in a recipe, small instances of racism accumulate and play a definitive role in how the plot unfolds. 

Transcending the clichéd nature of its initial premise, Ng’s Everything I Never Told You is a recipe whose core ingredients mix in ingenious ways. The result is authenticity. Each character is deftly realized, and each event, however miniscule, adds to the overall plot. Through the interplay of the figurative and the literal, the questioning of race and identity, and the presence of seemingly trivial but definitive details, Ng has succeeded in crafting the delicate bond that holds the Lee family together and the tragedy that pulls them apart. And reading the story is like peeling an onion: lots of layers (of meaning) and lots of tears. Should we say that Celeste Ng has succeeded in cook-Ng up intrigue in her debut? I think we can.