The Refugees Literary Elements

Short fiction.

“Black-eyed women”: Korea and America. “War Years”: Vietnam during the 1970s and 1980s.

"Black-eyed women": First-person point of view.
“War Years”: First-person narrator.

“Black-eyed women”: Grotesque, fearsome, imaginary.
“War Years”: Upsetting, mournful,

“Black-eyed women”: A ghost-writer is the protagonist, whereas ghosts are antagonists. “War Years”: A Vietnamese boy is the protagonist. Communists are the antagonists.

“Black-eyed women”: Confrontation of ghosts.
“War Years”: Communism in Vietnam.

“Black-eyed women”: The narrator’s encounter with her departed brother’s ghost.
"War Years": The narrators' parents' monetary contribution to Mrs. Hoa, which is intended to support Vietnam's "the war on communism."

“Black-eyed women”: The narrator’s mother foreshadows that her departed son’s ghost will never return.

“War Years”: The narrator employs flashbacks to expound the events during “the war years.”

“Black-eyed women”: The narrator understates the danger posed by ghosts by claiming that some are “shy.”
“War Years”: the Communists’ alleged ‘evilness’ is overstated when they are portrayed as ungodly.

“Black-eyed women”: Allusions to mysticism and oral literature.
“War Years”: Historical allusion (Vietnam War) and allusion to literary work (“The Fall of the House of Usher.”)

“Black-eyed women”: The narrator’s descriptions persuade a reader about the reality of ghosts.
"War Years": The "War Years" are characterized by mayhem, agony, death, and destruction.

"Black-eyed women": The act of 'haunting ghosts' is paradoxical; usually, the ghosts are deemed to haunt the living.

N/A

“War Years”: Guerrillas are dissident fighters.

“Black-eyed women”: Ghosts are personified.