The Gangster We Are All Looking For Sparknotes

Authors across every genre utilize humor to provide relief from the tension created by their works. The contrast between painful moments and comedic instances deepens the impact of the serious elements while ensuring the accessibility and engagement of the content for the reader. Humor is a device meant to balance emotions and add layers to the story. Lê Thi diem thy employs various humorous occurrences in her insightful narrative, The Gangster We Are All Looking For. She explores complex themes of immigration, identity, and generational trauma and the distinct forms of humor in the novel not only provide bits of comic alleviation but also serve as a means of coping with the challenges and struggles faced by the characters. The innumerable

The father’s humor is not used as a tool to console his own thoughts and tragedies, the motive is to assuage his daughter’s hesitation and anxiety. When dressing the girl in the frilly dresses given to her by Mrs. Russell, the father notices her reluctance and distracts her, “Ba lowered the edge of his mouth and raised his eyebrows at the same time, like a clown about to cry” (16). The father does not bring up the subject of the dresses or demand her compliancy, but instead alters himself into something silly, intentionally showing the girl being able to laugh at oneself will allow for greater opportunities. Ba is a man that enjoys the freedom his daughter exhibits, loving the free-spirited girl he is raising. He often defends the girls to the uncles who complain about her rowdiness because he wishes for her to maintain the innocent nature she has miraculously retained even after the horrors of her past. His willingness to make himself into something humorous, like the face of a clown, clearly depicts the lengths he is willing to travel to ensure that his daughter can laugh in the face of adverse experiences. After the complex’s pool was filled with concrete, the father commented, “they should have filled it with soil. He could have grown us a jungle in the courtyard. ‘If that had happened,’ he told me, ‘you and your friends could have been the wild animals, charging through the jungle two by two’” (69). The father laments the bleakness of the once beautiful pool, but he does not burden the daughter with his thoughts and instead offers an alternate version of events. He gives her hope and the ability to imagine the adventures her and her friends