How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife :: essays papers

How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife Manuel Arguilla and Charlson Ongs stories may have an almost similar title, with each(prenominal) of the main characters bringing home a wife who is different from the local anaesthetic people. However, the newer version addresses a much more serious issue. In Charlson Ongs How My Cousin Manuel Brought Home A Wife, the writer used agate line of characters(particularly Consuelo and Mei Lu) and contemporary language to show that even in the late age, racial discrimination still exists and destroys ones happiness. Hearing well-nigh his sons return with a Brazilian wife, Mei Lu is devastated. Her agony clearly worsens to the extreme upon seeing her daughter-in-law Consuelo, a huge and sullen woman whom she describes as bigger than the great wall and blacker than the pit of her kettle. She might learn to live with the fact of a foreign daughter-in-law, Spanish-speaking and all. But Consuelo? The woman simply failed to st rike me as macrocosm in the universe of possibilities Aunt Mei Lu could imagine. It is made clear by the writer in these lines that a foreign daughter-in-law of a pare down discolour other than black would be bearable for Mei Lu. Mother says Carlos should not have brought Consuelo to the house. But did they not send Carlos to the airport to bring the copulate back home? Apparently, they were expecting a white Brazilian. At 70 and being from an age where the word beauty conjured a fairness often depict as being edible and where petite, teen-age, virgin brides were tucked neatly into imperfect sedan chairs fit for babes, Mei Lu can not assent the fact of having Consuelo, who has just the opposite qualities, as the wife of her only son. She regards Consuelo as subhuman. This she reveals by her wailing You call that a daughter-in-law? Furthermore, she associates Consuelos black skin color with evil. Eventhough she has not spoken a word to Consuelo, except for the dustup O k ui she called to her face, Mei Lu automatically assumes that she tried to kill Manuel, who was in reality saved through Consuelos psychic abilities, and is only after Manuels money, which is not as much as Mei Lu thinks at all.