- In the first chapter, we found out that Thi's father Bô was not in the delivery room with Má when their children were born. What do you think about that when you read that? And by the end of the book, did you ideas shift? If so, how and why? If not, how and why not?
When I first read that Bo was not in the delivery room with Thi's mother I thought that he was not very compassionate and very selfish for not wanting to be in the room with his wife. I think this went along with what I thought of his character in the beginning of the novel. As the book progresses we also are told stories of his being very mean and cold, this lead me to believe that as a person this was who he is, and that the reason he was not in the delivery room was because he just did not want to be. However, as the book progresses we learn a lot more about Bo and what he went through in vietnam. We learn that him and his wives first child was stillborn, And their second died very young. This gives a whole new level to how I think of Bo now. Now when I think of why he was not in the delivery room I immagine a scared father who was so scared of losing another one of his children. This is something I think TBWCD does very well. There are a couple parts in the beginning of the novel that seem completely different once we learn about the struggles for Thi's family in vietnam.
