Ballard 1

Kendall Ballard

Dr. Thorat

Special Topic EN

8 September 2020

Close Reading on The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

“We dreamed of new wooden sandals and end-less bolts of indigo silk and of living,

one day, in a house with a chimney. We dreamed we were lovely and tall. We dreamed

we were back in the rice paddies, which we had so desperately wanted to escape. The rice

paddy dreams were always nightmares. We dreamed of our older and prettier sisters who

had been sold to the geisha houses by our fathers so that the rest of us might eat, and

when we woke we were gasping for air. For a second I thought I was her.” (page 5 paragraph 1)

I chose this paragraph because it gives the readers an idea of the girls on the boat desires

and wishes. We can kind of look into their thoughts and see what they long for in their new life

that’s waiting for them in San Francisco, California. Julie Otsuka gives us an idea of how the

Vietnamese girls lived in a harsh environment on the boat, where some of the girls came from

and their thoughts throughout the journey.

“We dreamed of new wooden sandals and end-less bolts of indigo silk and of living, one day, in

a house with a chimney.” While on their voyage, these women dreamed of things they desire to

have on the path to their new life. “New wooden sandals”, for instance, tells the readers that they

had worn out hand-me-downs. And “indigo silk” tells us that they longed to have nice attire

because all they were used to wearing were old kimonos. They dreamt of living in a house with a
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chimney, we can infer that the houses they were at before were not immaculate. Most of the girls

on the voyage were not wealthy and did not have nice things.

“We dreamed we were lovely and tall.” I think this tells the readers that the girls are

insecure over the way they look and how they envy taller girls who they also think are more

beautiful than them. “We dreamed we were back in the rice paddies, which we had so

desperately wanted to escape.” By saying this, we can assume that even though they were not

happy in the rice paddies, it reminds them of home, a place they will never see again. “The rice

paddy dreams were always nightmares” I think the symbolism of the previous sentence is how

the girls would recall in their dreams the grueling hours of hard labor in the rice paddies. Earlier,

they stated that they dreamed about being back in the rice paddies, because that time reminds of

them being home, but they were also not happy being in the rice paddies so even though they we

working hard labor and called it a “nightmare”, it still reminded them of home, which they won’t

ever see again.

“We dreamed of our older and prettier sisters who had been sold to the geisha houses by

our fathers so that the rest of us might eat.” That statement gives the reader an insight into the

girls and their home life. The fathers would sell their oldest daughter to the Geisha in order for

the rest of the family to survive. It seems like the family mostly relies on the women in the house

to survive because in order for the rest of the family to eat, the father has to sell the daughter to

the Geisha and then the other daughters are set to have an arranged marriage to men they have

never met.