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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Emperor of Gladness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Found Family
Time
War and Generational Trauma
Distortions of Reality
The American Dream
Summary
Analysis
This chapter begins with the sentence, “He shoots the old lady and nothing happens.” The “he” in question shoots the woman repeatedly, in the kitchen, bedroom, and foyer, but she rises every time. This disorienting ritual exists “because they’re at war and it doesn’t make sense.” Slowly, the woman is revealed to be Grazina, the male character’s landlady. The boy is assassinated at the kitchen table, and it is November. The person shooting is finally named Sergeant Pepper, Hai’s alter ego, recontextualizing this passage as describing Grazina’s bouts of mental confusion.
In dividing the novel based on the seasons, Vuong once again places time at the forefront of the book; not only is time important to the characters, but it also aids in structuring the story’s narrative. This excerpt begins with incredibly vague language, at first never explicitly naming Hai and Grazina. In doing so, Vuong highlights the instability of identity and reality, showing how quickly people can turn themselves into characters. Vuong only reveals the characters’ identities as the chapter ends, and though readers may have inferred their identities previously, Vuong’s confirmation forces readers to recontextualize what they have just read. This manipulation of readers’ understanding shows just how powerful ambiguity can be at changing our understanding of reality.
Themes
After Hai’s first night acting as Sergeant Pepper, Grazina asks Hai to conduct mock gunfights. These occur three times a week, and “in the theater they made of her memories, the war was drawing to a close.” She breaks out of these gunfights abruptly, suddenly setting out teacups as if they hadn’t been reenacting a war. Hai describes this sudden shift as “like coming down from a high.” Over tea, she tells him about her life in the Second World War, how her mother converted to Catholicism out of fear while her father turned to alcohol. She continues to denounce Stalin and the Soviet Union but quickly turns to one of her regrets: never seeing Gene Pitney in concert.
Now, Vuong adds even more context to the chapter’s opening, explaining the development of Hai and Grazina’s war reenactments. In describing these moments of reliving her history as a form of theatre, Vuong highlights the element of performance in their actions and further connects their use of Grazina’s memories to storytelling. Just as a stage play brings an audience into a fictional reality for its duration, so do their reenactments bring them back to Grazina’s past. Grazina’s regret of never having seen Gene Pitney is another example of her idolization of America and its culture; Pitney was an American singer-songwriter who was also from Connecticut.
Themes
At work, the crew discusses Russia’s Bugs Bunny tattoo and its close resemblance to a crude sexual act. This discussion leads to BJ pulling up her sleeve to show a dark blotch on her shoulder. Though the crew can’t recognize it, she says it’s a music note-shaped birthmark, signifying her future as a musician and wrestler. She then sends Maureen and Hai to another chain restaurant, Panetta, for Peace Treaty Day, a day where the restaurants swap food for their respective staff. Panetta has a reputation of being stuck up and snobbish and usually only gives HomeMarket lackluster salads on Peace Treaty Day.
BJ’s belief that her birthmark has fated her future success in music and wrestling reveals her hope of having a greater purpose in life, to be destined to live out her dreams of performing. While she takes great pride in her job at HomeMarket, as was shown in the tour she gave to Hai, she has aspirations that are greater than the fast-food restaurant. Additionally, her openness with the HomeMarket crew shows just how close they all are, as she is unafraid to open up about her passions to them.
Themes
On the drive, Maureen tells Hai about her strong belief in conspiracy theories, such as the world being controlled by lizards who feed off of humanity’s negative energy. Hai hadn’t shared her beliefs previously, but he finds it hard to dispute her determination and pure belief. She then goes on to share her love of Star Wars, which stems from her son, who died of leukemia 10 years prior; she wears his old Han Solo watch every day. Given her odd beliefs, Hai asks where she thinks her son is now, to which Maureen laughs and says, “My baby’s with God.”
Maureen and Hai’s opposing views of reality show how easily distorted reality can be; Maureen is so firm in her conspiratorial beliefs that Hai can’t begin to dispute them and they become her reality. Whether or not her beliefs are true, her lived reality feels just as real as Hai’s. Her later revelation that her son has passed reinforces the presence of grief in the novel. Just as Hai has lost his grandmother and Noah, so has Maureen lost her son.
Themes
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The workers at Panetta are, in fact, just as snobbish as Maureen said, and she and Hai have passive-aggressive interactions with the staff for the duration of their visit. While there, Maureen runs into Nacho, a truck driver and an old friend. She goes off with him and tells Hai to wait for her in HomeMarket’s van. When she returns, she explains that he is a friend with benefits. They return to HomeMarket, where the team complains about the disappointing food Panetta sent while Maureen complains about her knee pain. Hai offers to get her a frozen pack of food to ice her knee, but she says the sex she and Nacho had in the back of his truck was enough help. She then contemplates death and shares how upsetting it is that death truly has no meaning.
The Panetta workers’ sense of superiority over Hai and Maureen shows how concepts of class and classism infiltrate even the restaurant industry. The Panetta workers believe themselves superior simply because of their classier restaurant, and this supposed superiority causes them to treat Hai and Maureen unfairly because of their less sophisticated jobs. Even though they all work similar menial jobs, Vuong highlights the presence of classism and superiority, pointing towards its broader existence in society.
Themes
