Shoes and Hair
Both shoes and hair represent the folly of trying to be something other than one’s true identity. The Monkey King’s edict that all monkeys on Flower-Fruit Mountain must wear shoes represents his own desire…
read analysis of Shoes and Hair
Transformers
Broadly speaking, Transformer toys symbolize identity, and particularly how fluid one’s identity can be. This can be both a positive and negative thing. When young Jin first tells the herbalist’s wife that he’d like to…
read analysis of Transformers
The Laugh Track
The laugh track—the “HA HA HA” and “CLAP CLAP CLAP” that run along the bottom of panels in the chapters telling Danny’s story—symbolizes American pop culture and sitcoms, and specifically, the racist attitudes expressed…
read analysis of The Laugh Track
