Comp Lit Paper Final

Richard Sheperd SEASN R5A Rebekah Collins Comparative Analysis: The Boat and Ilustrado The novels The Boat by Nam Le and Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco are both stories that include fictional characters that slightly resemble their respective authors. These stories have both interesting similarities and distinct differences. Nam Le and Miguel Syjuco’s novels incorporate an overall theme of casting away the doubts of others to persevere in ones own goals, but each of the characters in their novels writes about different subject matter: Nam on the effects of trauma, while Miguel on how writing can produce social change. Each of these stories include characters overcoming attempts to halt them from writing what they want to write. In Nam Le’s story Love and Honor and Pity and Sacrifice the pessimistic character is his father. Nam, the character, expresses why he wants to write his father’s story in a heated discussion. “‘I want them to remember,’ I said. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, ‘Only you’ll remember. I’ll remember. They will read and clap their hands and forget’” (Le 24). His father expresses that writing such a story would be a futile effort. Nam’s father douses his son’s hopes of producing literature that will honor his traumatic and unique history. Although Nam’s father tries to push his son away from writing the ethnic story Nam presses on and eventually interviews his father. A similar situation occurs within the story of Miguel Syjuco with his grandmother. While Miguel and his grandmother are having a discussion about the current political mess in the Philippines, Miguel’s grandmother attempts to convince him that the world is too big and too difficult for people to change. “‘...That’s just the way things are. You really think you can change

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the world?’ ‘I can be part of the change.’ ... ‘I don’t think we can really change anything. It’s too difficult’” (Syjuco 52). His grandmother, although willing to complain about the situation, is not willing to try to change what is going on. She is convinced that one person cannot make a difference in such a big place and is attempting to make Miguel believe the same idea. The situation with Miguel is nearly a copy of what occurred with Nam. In both cases we find that the older generation is trying to create an atmosphere of doubt among our budding writers. Regardless of these doubts Nam and Miguel persevere and continue to write, but on completely different ideas. The large difference between these two novels is the subject matter. Nam Le’s writing attempts to remind us of the everlasting psychological effects of traumatizing experiences. As stated earlier Nam wants to write his ethnic story others to remember his father’s past. “...I imagined him locked in rage, turned around and forced every day to rewitness these atrocities of his past, helpless to act” (Le 26). From being buried among corpses for hours to the people he killed in a massacre, Nam’s father cannot escape what he experienced in Vietnam. In my opinion Nam Le’s reason for writing his father’s story is based on his want for others to experience, for the duration of the story, what his father experiences everyday. Thus the reader might understand how having traumatizing experiences stays with individuals for their entire lifetime. In Ilustrado we notice that Miguel, the character, wants to create literary works that promote social change. Miguel makes this desire apparent when he vents his frustration of peoples’ tendencies to remove themselves from what is going on in the world. “...I saw that the global village had made it...easier for me and my friends to continue with our lives unhindered tuning out on iPods from China; heeding the urges to revitalize the economy by shopping;

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attending rallies only if we didn’t miss to many classes...” (Syjuco 53-54). One of Miguel’s major motives in writing is to create change in the world and to ensure that people take action in place of playing ignorance. This same mentality is shared among Crispin Salvador, the fictional author. In a conversation between the character Miguel and Crispin, Crispin advises, “How can anyone estimate the ballistic qualities of words? Invisible things happen in intangible moments. What should keep us writing is precisely that possibility of explosions” (Syjuco 205). Crispin speaks about the need to create revolutionary literature for the chance that it might cause unimaginable impact. This is the reason Miguel looks up to Crispin is because he too wants to write to create change in the world. What is slightly unusual is how Miguel uses Crispin to realize that not all of the change in the world will go exactly as planned. “If he looks hard, he can see land on the horizon. But when he blinks, it disappears. He’s never as close as he hopes” (Syjuco 57). Miguel is telling us that he understands that simply writing revolutionary literature will not cause everything to change the way he wants it to. Both the use of his strict statements and the creation of the fictional Crispin produce an understanding that Miguel is writing to initialize social change. Syjuco and Le’s stories share an overarching theme and also exhibit distinctly different subject matter. Both stories tell the tale of perseverance as the main characters cast away the discouragement of their elders to continue to write what they wish to write. The contents of each characters’ writing is what differs immensely. Nam writes an ethnic story so that his readers will not only be reminded of the vicious wrongdoings humanity experiences, but also the everlasting effect it has on people. Syjuco’s efforts in writing are directed toward starting a wave of social change, which is amplified through the creation of the fictional author Crispin.

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In my opinion, all three of these components are necessary. It is necessary to set aside other’s opinions and to persevere in ones own goals. Writers should write, as Nam Le has done, ‘preventative literature’ to remind others that wars and oppression have everlasting effects on the people involved. And writers should write revolutionary literature as well to continue to mold the future to be better than ever before. These books may seem to have many differences, but they have the same intent in mind.

Works Cited Le, Nam. The Boat. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2008. Syjuco, Miguel. Ilustrado. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.

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