Before you start thinking about potential ideas for your imaginative piece, it would be a good idea to recall some of the main and complex ideas explored by Nam Le in his text. They include:
- Culture
- Trauma
- Dreams and expectations
- The impact of war
- The fragility of the father-child relationship
By observing and closely examining each of the aforementioned ideas, one can use a single idea or a combination of those ideas as inspiration or primary themes to incorporate into their own writing. Based on this, here are some potential ideas that you may wish to consider:
- You may wish to explore culture from the perspective of an older immigrant. For instance, you could highlight the culture shock experienced by the main character, who grew up and became attached to their country of origin as well as their own culture and their struggles of living in a different country as a result. You could possibly combine this with the idea of war, resulting in an imaginative piece of a darker nature.
- You may wish to explore the journey of a character who strives for success in different aspects of their life. The character (and their ambition) could potentially be in a situation of struggle as they constitute one part of a chaotic, trauma-inducing household. As the character's progress (or lack thereof) becomes inconsistent with their dreams and expectations, the character discovers that the reason behind their failure was non-other than the closest people to them, their parents. This leads to an imaginative piece of a darker nature. However, if you are aiming to indicate positivity and optimism within your writing, the ending of this piece could be changed to the character emerging victorious and achieving their dreams, despite the circumstances that they had to suffer from.
I hope this helps!
