'Monkey Bridge' Analysis

I have been reading ‘Monkey Bridge’ for the past three days in class, although I often get distracted by one of my classmates who sits to the left of me. He constantly makes controversial and irrelevant remarks. In addition, I am often obstructed by the temptation to add features to my blog such as my cherished blog ‘view-counter.’

Before diving into ‘Monkey Bridge,’ I did a quick Wikipedia search on the Author and the book in general. What I found greatly helped me digest my reading.

I used youtube to watch historical videos to refresh my knowledge on the events during this time period:




The Author, Lan Cao was born in Vietnam and lived the war as a child. She moved to the USA when she was a teenager. According to Wikipedia, Monkey Bridge is concidered to be "the first novel by a Vietnamese American about the war experience and its aftermath." As I read the opening to the book, I realized that this book was based on realistic events Cao herself experienced while growing up in Vietnam.

For this blog post, I would like to focus on the meaning of the opening in the story and how it progresses in the early chapters in terms of Lan Cao’s goal of writing the book. In the prelude, a quote from T.S. Elliot says…

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)
And I will Show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at Evening rising to meet you;
I will sho you fear in a handful of dust

Based on background research and reading the back cover, I think Lan Cao is trying to connect past and present though this book. A young girl in the story immegrates from Vietnam to America and this book will tell of how her past and present connect. A shadow that stides behind you is the past, and a shadow rising to meet you is the future.


With the very first chapter, Cao avoids a fancy opening with a detailed discription of the plot. The book starts with a shock, “The smell of blood, warm and wet, rose from the floor and setteled into the solemn stillness of the hospital air. With this opening, Lan Cao is marking the tone of the book and setting the expectations that this will be a serious book with grosome and sad moments. As I read this first line, I realized there is no action-adventure aspect to the book as I had originally expected based on the cover. Although I was disappointed, I was drawn into the story and keep my eyes glued to the pages. I could sympathize with the narrorator who is only an innocent child trying to take in everything that is happening around her. For example, her innocense is illustartes when she says, “Someday maybe we’ll have airplanes that go from Saigon to Washington. And maybe my grandfather will be able to fly over here, just like that (Cao 7)”

I will try to finish the book by Friday and post another blog about it on Thursday, and a final Monkey Bridge Blog over the break reflecting about the entire story. I will try to keep the distractions to a minimum and read ½ hour each day outside of class.