Jessica Silva – Week 3, Question 4

Consider the details the author provides in "A Chinese Banquet". What do these (largely image-driven) details establish in the poem? Consider that these details are offered primarily in the first half of the poem but are largely absent from the second.

The imagery in Kitty Tsui’s “A Chinese Banquet” illustrates the level of importance that her family places on projecting an image of wealth and success: working as a dentist, driving a Mercedes, owning a home, vacationing in Beijing, and marrying early. I feel that these images are vivid because the fact that Tsui does not fit into this mold weighs heavily on her and it is something that she cannot forget – something that runs through her mind often. However, there is little to no imagery used in the second half of the poem – a technique used to illustrate the fact that she feels a distance growing between herself and her family, especially her mother, whom she desperately wants to “bridge the boundaries” with. While the second half of the poem is virtually void of imagery when she speaks of her family, in the last stanza, when speaking about her partner, she presents us with imagery of “dragons and water” as well as the “wide open sky,” perhaps to convey the idea that as she distances herself from her family and their lack of acceptance, she and her partner become all the family that one-another need.