On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

by

Ocean Vuong

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous makes teaching easy.

Kevin Character Analysis

Marsha’s son and Kyle’s brother. Kevin and Kyle live with their mother in Little Dog’s neighborhood in Hartford, Connecticut, and like his brother, Kevin overdoses on drugs and dies near the end of the novel. Both Kyle and Kevin illustrate the ubiquity of America’s opioid crisis, and their tragic deaths underscore the tendency of drug abuse and addiction to run in families.

Kevin Quotes in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

The On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous quotes below are all either spoken by Kevin or refer to Kevin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
War, Trauma, and Abuse  Theme Icon
).
Part 3 Quotes

One afternoon, while watching TV with Lan, we saw a herd of buffalo run, single file, off a cliff, a whole steaming row of them thundering off the mountain in Technicolor. "Why they die themselves like that?" she asked, mouth open. Like usual, I made something up on the spot: "They don’t mean to, Grandma. They’re just following their family. That's all. They don’t know it's a cliff,"

"Maybe they should have a stop sign then."

Related Characters: Little Dog (speaker), Trevor (speaker), Lan (speaker), Kyle (speaker), Kevin (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Buffalo
Page Number: 179-180
Explanation and Analysis:
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On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous PDF

Kevin Quotes in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

The On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous quotes below are all either spoken by Kevin or refer to Kevin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
War, Trauma, and Abuse  Theme Icon
).
Part 3 Quotes

One afternoon, while watching TV with Lan, we saw a herd of buffalo run, single file, off a cliff, a whole steaming row of them thundering off the mountain in Technicolor. "Why they die themselves like that?" she asked, mouth open. Like usual, I made something up on the spot: "They don’t mean to, Grandma. They’re just following their family. That's all. They don’t know it's a cliff,"

"Maybe they should have a stop sign then."

Related Characters: Little Dog (speaker), Trevor (speaker), Lan (speaker), Kyle (speaker), Kevin (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Buffalo
Page Number: 179-180
Explanation and Analysis: