Many of Little Dog’s random memories involve a wooden kitchen table he thinks he remembers from this youth, which symbolizes the power of suggestion on memory in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth we’re Briefly Gorgeous. Little Dog can remember a fire in his family’s Hartford apartment—but only because Lan told him there was a fire—and he can see in his mind the flames crawling up the walls and licking at the edges of the table. Little Dog can remember his father sitting at the table, and he can remember running his finger over the nuts and bolts the held the wood together. Little Dog can even remember hiding under the table with Rose and Lan in Saigon. Many of Little Dog’s memories, especially those associated with his father, involve the table in some way.
Toward the end of the novel, Little Dog admits that he never actually laid eyes on the table. Rose claims there was a table, but it was back in Vietnam, before Little Dog was born. The first time Little Dog’s father came home drunk and beat Rose, she was sitting at the table, but it is impossible that the same table is in Little Dog’s memories. Still, Little Dog remembers the table, and he can even remember helping his mother set it. Like the fire, Little Dog only remembers the table because he was told it existed, which is much like Little Dog’s memories of his largely absent father. Little Dog has few memories of his father, and each one is vague. Little Dog remembers his father because he knows he had one, not because he has any meaningful memories of him. Through the table, Vuong not only implies that memories can be planted by suggestion, he argues that such suggestions can seem just as real and vivid as actual memories.
The Table Symbol Timeline in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
