Monkey Bridge - Themes

Themes

Gender roles in traditional Vietnamese society: From Thanh's narrative, we learn that she has to give up all her fancy education in order to be a perfect wife, as her mother-in-law calls her. On the other hand, even though Baba Quan prostitutes his wife to his landlord, becomes a Vietcong, and eventually murders his landlord, Thanh and Uncle Michael still try to protect his vulnerable father figure by making up lies, because the Vietnamese believe that men are supposed to take care of their families by all means and women are to sacrifice.

Language and authority: Language, in this novel, appears in two opposite forms: the barrier of language and the power of language. In Thanh's secret letters to her daughter, she writes that Mai is ashamed of her because she speaks English with an accent, even though she speaks perfect Vietnamese and French. On the other hand, Mai finds her power from "the gift of language":

"Inside my new tongue, my real tongue, was an astonishing new power. For my mother and her Vietnamese neighbors, I became the keeper of the word, the only one with access to the light-world. Like Adam, I had the God-given right to name all the fowls of the air and all the beasts of the field. The right to name, I quickly discover, also meant the right to stand guard over language and the right to claim unadulterated authority" (37).

The generation gap: Because of the cultural differences and language barriers, the generation gap in immigrant families has become the most crucial factor that distance the parents and the children. Mai admits that her mother "dies in her mind" because she is "imperfect and unable to adjust" (70). A role shift between two generations hence appears. As critic David Cowart writes, "Mai sees the elder immigrants as adolescents, and her mother is undramatically transformed from mother to child" (Cowart 150).

Exile and nostalgia: When the Little Saigon members get together, the only thing they talk about is Vietnam. Deep in their hearts, they still believe that the communist government will eventually fall apart, and they can all go home then.