PAPER MENAGERIE (Short Story Analysis)

There's a boy whose Mom is Chinese and his Dad is a white American guy. Mom doesn't speak English. She was a "mail order bride" his Dad picked out of a catalogue. She makes origami animals for the boy. His favorite is a tiger. One day his friend comes over with his star wars figure. He asks to see the kid's toys so he shows him the origami animals. The protagonist "Jack" accidentally breaks the starwars you of the other kid. The other kid crumpled up the origami toy in retaliation calling it "cheap Chinese garbage". Another racist moment occurs when some neighbor ladies are talking about his mother. The boy Jack begins to resent his mother and his own identity being a mixed race child. He demands his mother speak English and draws away from her. He puts his origami animals in a box and puts them away. His mother died when he is in university. He pulls out the origami and finds a note his mother wrote to him on the tiger. The note tells about her childhood struggles and how she came to America by marrying his kind father. She felt sad when he pulled away from her because she only spoke Chinese. She applied herself to learn English. She told her son how much joy he brought her. So I believe at the end he realized how much pain he caused his mother. And how much he meant to her.

Elements of the Story - The Paper Menagerie

CHARACTERS 

Jack…the story is told by him. He is the son of a Chinese mother and white American father. 

Mother- she is from China. She spoke no English when she arrived and for much of her life. She made origami animals for Jack in his childhood. She later learned English because her son and husband pressured her to learn. We learn later she learned English in order to communicate with her son whom she loved dearly. 

Dad- Jack’s father is a kind, loving man. He wants the best for his family.

Mark….Jack’s childhood friend. They get in a fight over their toys over which Mark utters some racist remarks.

Neighbor women—two neighbor women call on the family after they move in. They can not communicate with Jack’s mother. They talk about why a “normal” man would marry someone like his mother. They talk about Jack’s facial features and refer to him as a “little monster”.

SETTING—the setting mostly takes place in Jack’s childhood in his apartment. The story doesn’t describe the physical setting. It talks more about him playing with the origami animals his mother made for him and sometimes playing with her too.

PLOT—Jack narrates his story about how his mother made him the paper animals and how much joy he had playing with them when he was younger. His favorite was Laohu, a tiger. He mentions some of the struggles with racism they faced, not looking the same as the other people in the neighborhood, although he doesn’t go into much detail about how it affected them. It mostly shows that some racism was present in their lives. As some teens do, Jack, when he became a teenager, became embarrassed by his parents especially his mother’s lack of English. He pulled away from her. He wanted to fit in with other kids so he turned from his mother’s culture. He put his paper animals in a box and stuck them in the attic. Later when he was in college his mother died of cancer. He rediscovered the origami animals and while looking through them discovered a note his mother had written on Laohu, the tiger. He found a girl who spoke chinese to translate the letter for him. It was a touching story of her life. She also mentioned the joy she felt when he was born and the pain she felt as Jack pulled away from her. At the end he traced the Chinese character for the word “love” over and over.

It appears that Jack “reconnected” with his mother through this letter she wrote to him. He had kind of shunned her in his teen years but upon reading the letter and learning so much more about her he saw the error of his ways and began to appreciate her for who she is. Sadly, this occurred after her death. 

CONFLICT - The conflict in this story happens due to the cultural difference of each characters. Mom is Chinese and Dad is American. Jack used to prefer both cultures when he was small, but he started to disfavour Chinese culture as he grew.

THEME- The themes for this short story are centered around mother-son relationship, cultural differences, racism, identity and heritage.