In Cold-Hearted, David Wong Louie reveals an ironic plot in highlighting a troubled relationship between a father and his son, and how cultural differences also plays a big role.

Culture is another role that plays an important fact in this story. Lawrence is a Chinese boy who has been living in the States for quite some time now. So he is bound to bump into cultural differences. In the second paragraph in the story he describes what is to be found in his refrigerator in his house. He states: “It was among the embarrassment of his youth.” (Louie, 2006, p. 217). He was comparing his culture to the American culture. “What real people ate. With forks and knives, your own plate, your own portion, no more dipping into the communal soup bowl.” (Louie, 2006, p. 217). But this is just his view about his culture.                                         He also faces racism and is embarrassed when other people call his family “crazy chinks”. For a split second he doubts his culture, “Maybe these two thugs were right, there was something unerringly Chinese about hauling this useless machine” (Louie, 2006, p. 221). He compares himself with his friend saying: “He could not imagine his friends and their dads doing likewise in their Electras or Continentals.” (Louie, 2006, p. 221).

We can also analyze this story by looking at the different characters. The protagonist in this story would be Lawrence, since he was the narrator and the story revolved around him and how he was trying to prove himself to his father. “Pop stuffed a five-dollar bill in Lawrence’s jacket and zipped the pocket. Perhaps he wasn’t so disappointed after all.” (Louie, 2006, p. 221).                                         The antagonist would be the father “Genius”, because he doesn’t show affection for his son, he is very materialistic; we can see that by the way he takes of the refrigerator he got. “What Lawrence saw in his father’s gentle cleaning of each egg holder’s deep dimple was kindness.” (Louie, 2006, p. 222).                                 

Also another antagonist would be the society, because of their stereotyping and racism. “Oh, it’s just some crazy chinks,” (Louie, 2006, p.220-221). It may be normal for Genius to drag some old refrigerator back home, but society sees it differently. Genius says, that he doesn’t want to call attention to themselves and that he doesn’t want people saying “Oh, look at that big shot, he must have won that nice refrigerator.” (Louie, 2006, p.219). You can very well make out that they do care what society thinks about them.

Every culture is different and when your living in some other country it can be difficult sometimes. But it also depends on the family. I think Genius leaving his family when Lawrence was a kid has an effect on Lawrence. Chinese cultures I guess the family is always together. With family I mean the mother and father are always together with their children. Genius leaving wasn’t normal I suppose.

Reference:

Louie, D.W. (2006). Cold-Hearted. In P. Shreve & B. M. Nguyen (Eds.), 30/30: Thirty American stories from the last thirty years (pp. 76-89). New York: Pearson.