Vietnamese Women Memoir

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Vietnamese Women Memoir on Growing up Based on When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is a memoir written by author Le Ly Hayslip in the first person perspective. She tells the story from the perspective of a Vietnam native during those times. As discussed in class, she uses an interesting way of structure as she constantly changes from past tense to present tense. The story is written in two very specific time frames - the author's childhood and youth and her return to Vietnam as an adult. The tense change makes the reader more aware of the changes in time and brings attention to the fact that the earlier time is written by the author from her memories. It is important to note that the perspective is biased and limited because it is written from her memories. The book is both dialogue and narrative. The entire time I kept in mind that the author's memory could be tainted from the passage of time or from a reluctance to show herself in anything other than a positive light. The story is not presented in chronological order. It hops routinely from present to memories of her childhood. This isn't overly confusing but the memories from her childhood are also not presented in chronological order, which may be confusing. Her Vietnamese memoir seems to be focused around the themes of survival, coming of age, the nature of war and the importance of tradition. Le Ly tells the story of many of the village people including herself and her mom with most choosing to continue fighting for the right to live long after it seems human endurance would have been exhausted. Le Ly and her mother are examples of this will to survive. Le Ly speaks a lot on her childhood. When she was born, Le Ly is a tiny infant weighing only two pounds at birth and her mother is told that the merciful thing to do would be to suffocate the baby. Her mother
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