"Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying" but Visualized (In COLOR)!

 

(Gouache, 7” x 10”)

I decided to paint specifically a scene on 458, although the art could fit as an overarching piece, and elements from the rest of the story are incorporated in this: 

“Honey, said Mom, You Won’t Let Me Get To Know You, Ronnie, Don’t You Love Me? Don’t You Like The Food I Make For You? Don’t You Miss Your Mother?

Ronnie shook her head.

Ronnie, I Am Going To Knock First—”

In my artistic interpretation of this story, I painted two figures, one of them red and the other blue. The blue one represents Ronnie, and the red Mom. Ronnie is looking down, appearing more solemn and sad. Mom is looking up at her, while reaching her hand out. This depicts Mom attempting to connect with Ronnie. When I was creating this, I didn’t have a picture in mind of what Ronnie nor Mom looked like, so their features are more vague. I decided to keep Mom even more vague and gave her loosely-defined features since that’s how I visualize her. Along with that, I also thought of the girls seeing her differently, as Mom was based on the girls’ perceptions on what a good parent should be and Mom would manifest differently for each of them.

The colors were intentionally chosen for this. I limited my palette to blue, red, black, and white, which are the same colors on the Korean flag. I chose blue for my depiction for Ronnie since blue is a versatile color. It can represent calmness, sadness, and aloofness, which I thought matched well with Ronnie’s character. Throughout the story, I thought of her as a calmer character, especially when compared with Mini and Caroline. Additionally, her distant and aloof nature is amplified with the presence of Mom. Her friends know little to nothing of her family and home life, and she refuses to let Mom in. I also left most of her face to be white, as white also has connotations with isolation. It is also commonly known to represent purity and innocence, which seems like it would contrast with Ronnie’s character but I will expand on that. 

Mom is painted red. Red is a color which especially has lots of meanings to it (both positive and negative), but I view it as a strong and passionate color. It can mean love, danger, aggression, and even be a color that promotes persuasion. All of these combine to make my portrayal of Mom. To Mini and Caroline, the red would mostly be tied with love, while for Ronnie, it would be the other meanings. 

When you look at the two figures interacting in my painting, the hand that reaches out to Ronnie’s face leaves behind trails of red. It is especially prevalent on the white parts of Ronnie’s face, showing a clearer effect of Mom on Ronnie—that she is tainting her. This also alludes to the ending of the story, where Ronnie and Mom merge together: “Who are we? We are Ronnie and someone standing behind her, with hands on my shoulders, a voice in her ear, and sometimes we are someone standing inside her, with feet in her shoes, moving her around” (459). This is further emphasized at the middle of the painting. Neither of Ronnie or Mom’s bodies are defined, but they rather fade into each other, creating a purple (which is what red and blue mix to). It shows the process of Ronnie and Mom becoming one.

Experiences of a Second-Generation Immigrant and How Media Affects You (“Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain" by Jamil Jan Kochai)

 “But now, at the door, is your father.

“‘Mirwais?’ he is saying, very gently, the way he used to say it when you were a kid, when you were in Logar, when you got the flu, when the pills and the I.V. and the home remedies weren’t working, when there was nothing to do but wait for the aching to ebb, and your father was there, maybe in the orchard, maybe on the veranda, and he was holding you in his lap, running his fingers through your hair, and saying your name, the way he is saying it now, as if it were almost a question.

“Keep going.” (Kochai 14-15).

In “Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain,” Jamil Jan Kochai describes the relationship between a son and his veteran father, represented through a video game. As the narrator immerses himself in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s setting of Afghanistan, he visualizes himself in his childhood hometown of northern Kabul. He becomes more and more engaged in this delusion of saving his father and uncle during the war, as his family periodically interrupts with concern. 

Near the end of the story, just after the narrator is bringing his father and uncle to safety in the game, “now, at the door, [was his] father.” (14). After attempts of other family members in breaking away the narrator’s attention from the game, his father finally comes to the door of his locked room: “‘Mirwais?’ he is saying, very gently, the way he used to say it when you were a kid” (14-15). The narrator has pulled himself away from reality, he resides in this reimagined version of the game, in which he is able to rekindle and save his father. In the game, he saves his father from the war, but does not focus on the current reality of his father being there for him.

The narrator continues with his description: “when you were in Logar, when you got the flu, when the pills and the I.V. and the home remedies weren’t working, when there was nothing to do but wait for the aching to ebb, and your father was there, maybe in the orchard, maybe on the veranda, and he was holding you in his lap, running his fingers through your hair, and saying your name, the way he is saying it now, as if it were almost a question” (14-15). Typically seen in this story, interjections from reality, such as his brother knocking on the door, are summed up in a simple sentence. This longer description of a memory shared with his father demonstrates his reminiscing and almost a spiraling of his thoughts; it implies a wistfulness and an underlying longing. The memory takes place when the narrator was younger, back in his childhood home. It portrays a simple moment, an act of tenderness between father and son, when there was nothing to worry about besides this illness. It is a stark contrast to the present, where his father only speaks to him in English, since he has long given up on trying to speak to him in Pashto. As he grows older, he only grows more disconnected from his family and to his heritage as a result. Neither of them know how to express their affection now to each other, especially with the added burden of the language barrier.

 

His father calls him “‘Mirwais?’...the way he used to say it when [he was] a kid” (14). He may say it the same but the relationship is no longer the same as it was before. This moment reveals how deeply he and his father still care about each other, but only emphasizes the growing chasm between them, as neither are able to connect with one another. His father even calls to him “as if it were almost a question” (15). A father calling to his son is usually shown to be done without a doubt, but the hesitancy in his tone stresses how their relationship is now uncertain territory. Despite this, the narrator tells himself to “keep going” (15). He is unable to grasp reality; he experiences a delusion of saving his family in the game but in real life, he cannot show the same amount of care to his father. In the narrator’s eyes, this game is used to rekindle him and his father’s relationship, as he does not know how to do the same in reality.

 

“Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain” uses a second person point-of-view to immerse the reader in the narrator’s shoes and experience the world the same as he does. The format of the story elaborates so much on what occurs in the game, it almost causes the reader to get lost in the description, mimicking what the narrator is experiencing. It emphasizes how the line between fiction and reality is hard to distinguish, further pushing the message that the media you consume has an effect on you. When playing it, the narrator does not think about it; he is so attached to what is on the screen and continues to mindlessly consume. Furthermore, Kochai does an incredible job showcasing generational trauma and the experience of being a second-generation immigrant. He shows the clear separation between the narrator and his family: how he is unable to fully connect with them, so he surrounds himself in American culture, shown with playing these games and blasting MF Doom. In immersing himself with this, he rejects his own heritage because it has never felt like his own---he does not share the same experiences as his father nor the rest of his family.