Midterm First Draft

Kevin Nguyen
ICS 24
Marshal/Marilyn
Midterm
Catfish and Mandela-Analysis
Catfish and Mandela, written by Andrew X. Pham, is considered a master piece by Marshall; either that or he was exaggerating. The book definitely does have a unique form of hyphenation as it is used in every chapter title that the book has and it also is discreetly used as a link between chapters. The ways hyphenations are used in Catfish and Mandela are abstract meanings such as Alley-World, Jade-Giant, Chi-Minh, and Blue-Peace. Their meanings could be anything to anyone person. Marshall told us that even though they may non sequitur, there will still be some kind of meaning derived from it, hence, abstract.
The first hyphenation from the chapters is Alley-World. Both of the words in the hyphenation are quite significant in that it describes a little part of Pham’s childhood. This was when he had to stay alone at home and all he had was an opening which he could talk through to the next door girl on the other side of the back street. They talked about mundane stuff because it was the entire world to them during that point. [P](96). And so, if any one word from the hyphenation were to be missing, the meaning would change and the significance of Pham’s childhood would be null. For instance, the alley is one of the things that separate Pham from the girl next door and that the whole area—alley included---was his world until they have to move back home again.
Another use of hyphenation would be the chapter “Jade-Giant”. Andrew Pham used this to describe a gentle giant man who he had met while staying on an Indonesian compound. The man’s name was Wong, a jade cutter, which Mr. Ling described as “..had been there twelve years and every year he sent an appeal to whatever country he thought he belonged to. Every year he was rejected.” [Q](141). This “jade-giant” however, cracked one day and started a rampage, destroying objects using all of his monstrous strength, and committing suicide off the roof of the tower compound. To Pham, Jade could possibly mean the jade statue figurines and the making of, and Giant could mean the giant of a man who made all those jade for a living. Again, the author’s hyphenation holds some significance.
The next hyphenation is of the chapter “Chi-Minh”.