Write a 250-300 word essay in which you discuss these issues…
Write a 250-300 word essay in which you discuss these issues: 1) What is the story in the poem? What is your reaction after reading this poem? 2)Who is narrator, and what can you tell what the relationship between the narrator, the brother, and the father? 3) The Buddhist New Year’s Lanterns (new year festival in Asia) are created using various colored tissue paper which is very fragile. How are the lanterns a metaphor for what is going on within the family? What does the devil do and not do, and how does the narrator feel about the devil? Buddhist New Year’s Lantern For my father Walls keep out the devil, but it’s in the hallway— hair carved and with red eyes that find me even when I hide. It captures the evil eye, my mother says. The candle flickers inside the lantern we hang on the tree—my older brother bent the bamboo strips into shape and my finger kept getting caught on the string. You say, it’s the new year; the paper will protect the flame— the light like dusk on our faces. The blue tissue paper rips when my brother takes it down. You say, we’ll make a star-shaped lantern next year. My brother’s voice falters, “I closed his eyes with two coins,” as if his voice had caught you leaving and couldn’t make you stay. The words reordered still fall into him and become a litany within me so that seeing is my own voice returning the way the devil’s eyes never blinking see my brother in the hard sunshine after the coffin is lowered, the long angular body etched.
Read Details