Chang-Rae Lee’s “Coming Home Again” and
David Sedaris’s “A Plague of Tics” are both personal narratives that share
their life experiences. Lee’s “Coming Home Again” is a tribute to his mother to
commemorate her. In “Coming Home Again”, Lee writes about his relationship with
his mother in his childhood, his teen, and the present. In the story, Lee
flashbacks and recalls the memories of his childhood, when he and his mother
had close relationship, and of his teen, when he was at the boarding school in
New Hampshire, dismissing and saying bitter words to his family. Later on, when
he comes back and found his mother ill with cancer, Lee realized his deep and
strong bond between his mother and himself, and the native Korean food that his
mother made for him was a core means of communication between him and his
mother. However, Lee generally uses sad and melancholic tone in his narrative and
a lot of imagery to depict the foods that his mother or he cooked: “For Kalbi …
a butchered short rib in her narrow hand, the flinty bone shaped like a section
of an airplane wing….” Lee also uses symbolism when he symbolizes “Kalbi” as a loving
childhood memory between his mother and himself; he uses irony when he
describes his mother a good cook, but she got stomach cancer and cannot eat
anything except the liquids that flow in electronic pump. In contrast to “Coming Home Again”, “A
Plague of Tics” has humorous tone overall in Sedari’s narrative. In “A Plague
of Tics”, Sedari is very dynamic and interesting character who has a
psychological disorder called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Sedari draws the
attention of the audience by starting his narrative essay with the funny
anecdote of a dialogue with his teacher, Ms. Chestnut about the “problem” that Sedari
continues to do. After the hilarious conversation, Ms. Chestnut visited Sedari’s
parents to discuss about Sedari’s “problem”, OCD However, Sedari’s parents did
not take his “problem” seriously; his mother thinks it would just go away soon
and his father threats him to stop. Later on, as Sedari goes to college, he
faces deeper challenge with his friends, because of his uncontrollable OCD. However,
Sedari solves his OCD by another common OCD, smoking: “it gave him
something to do with his hands”. In similar to Lee’s
narrative, Sedari’s narrative also contains vivid imagery and irony. An example
of a vivid imagery in “A Plague of Tics” is: “…pausing every few feet to tongue
a mailbox or touch whichever single leaf or blade of grass demanded my attention.”
An irony used in “A Plague of Tics” is: “pleasure had nothing to do with it. A
person had to do these things because nothing was worse than the anguish of not
doing them”, which means Sedari is aware of his odd actions, but he could not
stop it due to his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
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