All Rivers Flow to The Sea by Louis Wang

Conflicts of The Novel

348764315 — 2019-01-07 15:25:09 UTC

The first conflict in the book is person vs. person, the main character Rose Latham vs a lot of her school mates; she hurt some of them by having sex with them, because they’ve been talking about her sister Ivy, which had became vegetable-human due to a car accident. First, she expressed the hate on her schoolmates: “They had called my sister a human vegetable. They were stupid. Stupid people(Maghee 22). It displays Rose’s hate on her schoolmates for disrespecting Ivy. Last but not least, in the book Rose’s friend Tom asked why she had sex Jimmy and points out that he likes her: “‘He’s been nuts about you his whole life’”(Maghee 125). Rose had sex with Jimmy who really cares about her, and acted cold-blooded to him, which hurted him. This 2 quotes proved that she clearly does not care about having sex with those people and that she did it mostly for vengeance.

The second conflict in the book is person vs. self; Rose was really downed by the fact that her sister Ivy had turned into a vegetable-human. First of all, Rose said that the accident is keep on happening and she bring Ivy back at all cost if she can: “The accident won’t stop happening, over and over it happens, and I would give anything to have my sister back”(Maghee 32-33). Second of all, Rose cannot accept the fact that Ivy is basically dead, is a struggle within her, she can’t let it go: “‘Your sister can’t hear you,’ the doctor said. ‘She has no vestibulo-ocular reflex’”(Mcghee 35). She is constantly going to the hospital and talk to Ivy, not willing to accept the fact that she is gone. After all, she is in a person versus self conflict, she is not willing to let go of the fact that Ivy is basically dead, constantly constructing conversations of her and Ivy in her head.

One issue in the Novel

348764315 — 2019-01-11 15:39:58 UTC

The Vegetable-State
One Issue, which is what that the novel is driven on, is vegetable-state. The main character Rose and her sister Ivy went through a car accident, Rose survived, but Ivy was declared brain-dead afterwards, that is basically dead, because she cannot react to anything around her. Obviously, this is a symptom that exists in real life: patients in a vegetable-state are alive, breathing, but show no sign of conscious awareness, communication is impossible as well. Patients in vegetable-state can react to photographs of people they know emotionally. "’We showed that patients in a vegetative state can react differently to different stimuli in the environment depending on their emotional value,’ said Dr. Sharon”(Science-

Daily). Therefore, patients can react emotionally, but they cannot express it. One doctor had communicated to a 60 year old man in vegetable-state who had been hit by a car verbally, telling him to imagine his parents’ faces, surprisingly, his brain exhibited complex activities as a healthy person, this also proved that people in vegetable-state could react react emotionally. Recent years, scientists and doctors had made use fMRI to examine brain activities of these patients, and found that some patients are able to perform complex cognitive tasks on command, such as imagining themselves playing tennis ball, even answering yes or no questions. A person in vegetable-state is unable to move physically, perhaps they feel like they are in a mysterious ground that has no exit, as nowadays technologies progresses, there are better things the doctor can do instead of just suggesting the patient’s parents to let him/her go. Perhaps one day it will be possible to rescue a person from vegetable-state and bring him/her back. In the novel it was really a tragic story that Ivy had turned into vegetable-state, who can tell if she is being caged into a place where she can’t get out? Perhaps it will be better if she had die in that car accident.

Work Cited:

American Friends of Tel Aviv University. "Do patients in a vegetative state recognize loved ones?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 16 December 2013. .

One media Connection

348764315 — 2019-01-14 15:33:27 UTC

One event in the book, which is also the most important event, is that the main character Rose Latham and her sister Ivy Latham had a car accident, and Ivy turned into a disabled state afterwards, and Rose had been struggling and not willing to let it go. In the Youtube video I found, it mentioned: “There is really no right or wrong way to deal with the lost of a loved one”(WatchWellCast). In connection to the book, Rose hated her schoolmates calling Ivy human vegetable, therefore she tried to hurt them by having sex with them, at the end she was pointed out that one guy that she had hurted likes her, and that she hurted him badly: “‘Don’t break his heart on purpose’(Mcghee 129). She’s heart is broken too: “‘Whose heart is f**king breaking here?’(Mcghee 129). I can really make connection between these two, when people lose a loved one, it is normal that they do things that people don’t understand. To Rose, these people are the ones who are disrespecting her sister that is gone, thus should be punished. The hate had driven her to do something that she can’t even imagine. Referring to the quote in the video saying there is no right or wrong way to deal with the lost of a loved one, all she had done is just on the purpose of buying her disabled sister a little bit of respect.

Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsYL4PC0hyk

Vegetable-State

348764315 — 2019-01-17 15:32:08 UTC

A patient in Vegetable-State