Analysis Of The Happiest Refugee By Anh Do

‘The Happiest Refugee’ is a memoir composed by Anh Do which was published on September 1st 2010. The novel is written in first person, which draws the responder in and it as though he is talking to them. Individuals deal with numerous challenges in their life, which shapes who they become whether they become stronger or weaker, Do has faced many difficult challenges in his life which have made him stronger and have made him the person who he is today. Two of the major challenges he has faced are survival and identity which will be explored in this essay. In his memoir, Anh Do provides the responder with anecdotes and flashbacks of the challenges he faced throughout his life. His family wanted to come to Australia in seach of a better life because of the war and poverty going on in Vietnam. However on their journey they became very close to losing their lives when they were threatened by pirates.
The composer effectively includes techniques to make the responder engaged and position them to react in particular ways. Some of which

include onomatopoeia, humour, first person and various other literary devices.This essay will demonstrate what Anh Do has gone through in order to overcome the challenges he has experienced.

One of the struggling challenges the Do family had experienced was leaving from Vietnam in a small tiny overcrowded boat ,to have a shot at a better life in Australia.Their only chance of survival was to flee Vietnam.

On their life threatening and dangerous journey to Australia, the Do family was attacked by a group of pirates.Onomatopoeia is utilised to convey a better image of what was going on. We get a better idea of what is going on in this example “Bang! Bang! The patrol boat began shooting at us, and the women on our boat screamed.” The use of this technique gives the responder a vivid picture in their head of what was going on and lets them know about how frightened the people were of the bullets whistling past their heads, ruining their chance of survival. From the horrific events that they experienced it reveals that this family was resilient, they had faith and hope and were willing to take risks to achieve their

challenge.

Anh Do explores the challenge of fitting into a new school and having difficulty in speaking English it was challenging for him to fit in because of his identity. One of the techniques used throughout the memoir is humour, Anh Do uses this to overcome challenging experiences. The responder can see that his English is bad in this example“ All through my primary school years I had a thick Vietnamese accent. Fifteen minute well equal tree.” This explains to the responder that it was very difficult for Anh Do to speak English well like everyone else, which made it harder for him to fit in. Even though he went through that challenge he can have a laugh about it, he didn’t get put down, he just kept on trying hard until he succeeded. This indicates that he is a positive and resilient person because he tried really hard to improve and didn’t give up.

Anh Do’s novel ’The Happiest Refugee’ explores the fact that an individual deals with numerous challenges in their life, which tests who they become, either stronger or weaker. Through the utilisation of techniques such as humour and onomatopoeia , we can comprehend that Anh Do and his family have gone through struggling challenges in their life,yet they never gave up until they achieved their challenge which makes them resilient. The major challenges they faced were coming to Australia and fitting in.