literary interpretation

American Born Chinese was an interesting read. I finished it within an hour and was amazed at how fast it went by. The story was more complex than I initially thought. Within the overall story there are three parts that come to play intermittently. Jin-Wang was the first character introduced, then the Monkey King, and finally Danny. Each of these characters had a similar conflict-- They needed to accept themselves. Jin-Wang's revolution did not happen until the very end, but the Monkey King's helped the entire storyline move forward.
The Monkey King was so consumed by the thought of becoming like the other deities that he lost sight of who he really was. When the monk showed the Monkey King that things could be better, the Monkey King did not believe him at first. When the two were discussing the Monkey King's ability to escape this rut he had put himself into you can see in the panels just how pointless it was to resist. In two of the panels, the Monkey King was made speechless by the monk's reasoning.
Danny was battling a couple of things. The main thing was himself. He was so afraid of embracing his heritage that he lashed out at anything that would cause suspicion that he was not just a cookie-cutter boy. Chin-Kee was his other enemy. It was not by design, it was just that Danny felt that his newly found school life was being threatened.
When we find out that Jin Wang is actually Danny and Chin-Kee is The Monkey King, everything seems to make sense. Of course I was a little confused. I thought that the Monkey King segments were added to give some background to the Asian culture, but it turns out that those panels played a significant role.
The panels that interested me the most were those of when the Monkey King was under the rocks, and the only way to escape was to "release" himself and become himself and not what other people expected him to be. I thought that was an amazing lesson.