Out-of-Class Essay

Assignment Overview: Analyze a turning point for Andrew Pham. Explain how and why he changed because of it.

Forgive but Never Forget: Violence, Love, and Regret in Catfish and Mandala

Can violence and abuse ever serve as a symbol of love? In his novel Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam, Andrew X. Pham explores the answer to this disturbing yet intriguing question. He and his siblings are beaten viciously by their father throughout their lives, but is their abuse a byproduct of their father’s love for his children? When Pham’s father finally opens up to him, Pham begins to comprehend the reasons for this abuse: love and regret. When his father breaks the silence between them, Pham understands his father’s reasons and forgives him for his mistakes, realizing that regret has been eating at them both; Pham finally begins to notice all there is to love about his father. In doing so, Pham understands and forgives himself, too.

Pham’s father is ridden with regret for the lives of his children. His oldest daughter Chi ran away from home, had a transgender operation, and committed suicide. He had beaten her terribly when she was a child for disobeying him and disrespecting his wishes, and Chi “never wholly came back into [their] lives again” (Pham 57). By beating her, Pham’s father had pushed away both him and Chi. In her adolescence, Chi began bandaging her chest, and Pham’s father disapproved of her inability to be “a normal girl” and beat her badly, “measuring out his love, in the way his father had taught him” (Pham 195). Pham’s father is trying to teach Chi how to be a “normal girl” by beating her because this is the only way he knows how to show her that he loves her. When he is discussing this with Pham, he confesses that he “didn’t know better…You beat your children if you love them” (Pham 320). Pham truly understands the reasons for Chi’s beating for the first time and begins to accept what has happened. His father finally admits that he “didn’t know any other way,” and Pham wants to forgive him for all his mistakes (Pham 320). Pham feels a strong need to forgive his father after his father opens up to him about his deepest feelings and thoughts. In forgiving his father, Pham ultimately forgives himself as well since he carried these regrets about Chi with him throughout his life. Unfortunately, Pham suffered from his father’s beatings as well; Chi was not the only victim of this abuse.

Pham describes a scene in which his father beat him viciously for not bringing in the groceries when told to that highlights a pivotal point of Pham’s childhood. Pham was too mesmerized by a Bugs Bunny cartoon, which highlights his assimilation into American culture, to help carry groceries, and his father beat him for not listening. For the first time, Pham confronted his father face to face without saying a word. In the past, Pham’s father had been distant from him, “a big businessman, too busy” (Pham 78). The one thing they shared between the two of them was silence. Now that Pham is “look[ing] him in the eyes,” the distance between them disappears entirely for that moment (Pham 169). Pham stands up to his father, and he stands up to a part of himself, refusing to be the victim anymore. After his beating, Pham begins to realize that he and his father are both violent, and that his father’s “rage was passed on to another generation” since Pham, too, is violent (Pham 170). Here, Pham begins to realize that he is becoming more and more like his father, a man who has been distant from his for all his life.

Not only does Pham accept that he is violent like his father, he uses this violence against his brothers. As a teenager, Pham “caned [his brothers] to teach them respect” when they refused to listen to him (Pham 238). Just as Pham’s father beat him for disobeying his orders, Pham beat his brothers for ignoring his orders when he told them what to do. He continues beating his brothers until Hien comes at him with a knife, and he realizes “how screwed up [they] all were” (Pham 238). Now that Pham is having an honest discussion with his father only a couple months before he leaves on his journey to Vietnam, he begins to realize that “screwed up” may not be the words that should be used in describing his family. At this moment, Pham is not only sympathetic to his family; he is also sympathetic to himself and his own flaws. In order to comfort his father and as a sign to show that he forgives him for his mistakes, Pham acknowledges: “[My siblings and I] turned out decent. We did, Father, we really did” (Pham 320). Pham is trying to comfort his father who is deep in regret for what he has done to his family, but at the same time, it sounds as if Pham is convincing himself that he turned out alright. Essentially, he is trying to forgive himself for his mistakes. Pham comes to the realization that he too has “caged [his] beast, [has] not struck in anger since Hien pulled the knife” (Pham 321). He understands that he has become less violent because Hien actually helped him in a way by pulling a knife on him. By talking with his father, Pham once again has been able to understand and forgive himself.

Pham’s father finally makes the difficult and onerous confession that he has been abusive. Although his abuse was a sign of how much he loved his children, it was still corporal punishment at its core. At that moment, Pham feels true compassion for his father; the anger and estrangement he once felt for him are feelings of the past because Pham lets go part of the anger inside him. Pham writes, “I wished with all my might that he hadn’t said it. For him, it was too much” because he understands that his father’s statement has strong emotional consequences that he fears his father will not be able to handle (Pham 321). His father’s acknowledgement was also “too much” for Pham; it was “too much” to bear emotionally. He worries about his father and understands the pain that his father lives with, which causes him to forgive his father for what he has done. Understanding is the biggest step to forgiveness. Pham knows that his father has a ton of “guilt…crashing down on his age-brittle shoulders,” and he comprehends the pain his father is going through (Pham 321). The weight of regret has been eating at his father, just as it has been eating at him. When Chi visited Pham’s home after being beaten by her father, Pham feels that Chi “became the family’s big shame, as if we’d somehow failed – failed her as we’d failed ourselves” (Pham 215). Pham has been carrying this guilt, regret, and feeling of failure with him since Chi had died. Because Pham carries so much guilt from Chi’s suicide, he is able to let some of it go in understanding and forgiving his father.

During his conversation with his father, Pham realizes that he and his father both have tremendous regrets about the past, especially about his sister Chi. In Vietnam, when Andrew finally verbalizes his regrets about Chi, he says, “I knew now…that I was weeping for her and I was weeping for myself because I was not there in the months before her death…I had avoided her, too engrossed in my own life, my own problems” (Pham 109). Pham carries the weight of this guilt and regret around with him all the time just as his father does. Since Pham has experienced the regret, he can be truly empathetic to his father since experience is the key to understanding someone else’s emotions. Pham understands all the regret his father has been carrying around when he admits, “I shouldn’t have beaten [Chi] like that. I was wrong” (Pham 320). During this scene, Pham realizes that his father is not much different from him; they both carry the pain of regret and guilt with them wherever they go. In their conversation, they are both able to let some of that guilt and regret go. In doing so, Pham forgives not only his father but himself.

After their talk, Pham realizes that his father is a “man given to passion and mountainous determination” (Pham 321). He is determined to raise a good family and more importantly to survive in a foreign land – the United States. The description Pham assigns to his father could fit Pham himself as well; he quits his job and takes a bicycle journey to Vietnam because he is determined to find his roots and answers to the burning questions he has about his family and about himself as well. Not only do both men share regrets, they also share two strong qualities: passion and determination. These are two of his father’s qualities that Pham respects tremendously.

Once Pham’s conversation with his father is over and he forgives his father – and ultimately himself, realizing the reasons behind his mistakes and feeling true compassion, Pham begins to figure out all the qualities there are to love about his father. He describes his father as “a worrier, a planner, a schemer…a man of logic” and claims that these qualities are the “best thing about him” (Pham 321). He realizes that his father’s worrying is part of the reason behind his violence; he worried about his family and wanted the best for them. Looking back on this and reflecting, Pham understands that what he believes to be one of the worst qualities in his father can actually be one of the best. He praises his father for his accomplishments as “an intellectual…a poet…award-winning translator…a fair artist” as he sees his father in an entirely new light for the first time (Pham 321). He realizes his father’s life has not been easy; “a mad saga” is how Pham describes his father’s difficult life journey (Pham 321). He understands that his father has overcome many obstacles to get to where he is today, and Pham respects him for his ability to “survive” at any cost. We also see Pham “survive” at any cost in Vietnam, overcoming obstacles to find out about his roots and his birth country. Even when Pham falls ill, he continues his journey. When Pham must bike across Vietnam, alternating “between hot and cold flashes,” he does it anyway because he is determined to complete his journey (Pham 303). Pham is just as determined as his father, although their determination manifests itself in different situations.

Is it possible that violence and abuse can stem from love? In an emotional scene with his father, Pham finally understands that his father beat him out of love and out of a desire for Pham to succeed in life. He understands the scope of his father’s emotions that range from guilt to regret to love for his family since Pham has himself experienced all of these feelings. Once the silence between father and son is broken, Pham realizes how much there is to love about his father that he has never stopped to notice, and he appreciates his father in ways he was not able to before. Pham also understands and forgives himself by forgiving his father because Pham’s father plays such an important emotional role in Pham’s life. By truly understanding his father, Pham begins to understand himself, realizing that he and his father share much more in common than he once thought. Once he forgives his father, he is also able to let the guilt eating at him go.


My Thoughts: I think this is a very strong paper especially after I made some corrections to it. Originally, I did not include enough information on how Pham changes as a direct result of his turning point, but after taking a second look, I was able to include that point in my thesis to make an even stronger essay. Generally, I would say I have pretty strong analytical writing, and I attempt to analyze from different angles to give the essay more depth. In addition, I have no grammatical errors in this final draft (at least to the best of my knowledge). I think that is a direct result of my improved proofreading skills. After completing the essay, I carefully went over it several times. From this assignment, I learned not only the importance of careful proofreading but also the importance of answering the question from different sides in its entirety.