The love between members of a family is a unique and complicated entity. This love comes in many different forms. In some families, such as those often ideally portrayed in movies and books, all the members of the family love each other unconditionally and never fight amongst themselves. In the other extreme, some family members such as Don Pedro and Don John in Shakespeare's play Much ado About Nothing, or Edmund and Edgar in the play King Lear, are driven apart by hatred and jealousy. Most families do not conform to either of these forms, but are somewhere in the middle. In the book, The Finder by Colin Harrison, this familial love is also extremely prevalent and drives many points of the story line. The actions of many of the characters is driven by their love for someone or something, and together, these twisting and overlapping desires fuel the story.
In New York City, a woman, Jin Li, narrowly escapes a gruesome murder and hides. She has been stealing classified information from corporations under the guise of a paper shredding business and giving the information to her brother, a prominent businessman in China. Because she has gone missing, he threatens Jin Li's ex-boyfriend, Ray, into searching for her. We cannot know for sure whether or not Jin Li's brother really loves her or if he is driven only by his love for profit. He tells Ray, "Jin Li, she call me and then she does not go to work, like I say before. I have to tell somebody to run my business. That is big problem just like that. Where is Jin Li, I say. She is good at the business for me" (35). Although he is worried about his sister, his greed is still his main motivation. This love between family members is shallow and thin. The love and relationship between Ray and his dying father is much more earnest. Ray knows his father is dying and that he is in great pain and doesn't have much longer to live. The thing that Ray wants most for his father is for him to be comfortable and, although he does love Jin Li, the real reason that he agrees to help her brother, Chen, is because his father is threatened. Chen's men steal Ray's father, Bill's, morphine pump in order to blackmail him. The author describes Ray's thoughts and actions:
Ray is not driven by fear for his own safety as he is dangled 50 stories high out of a widow by his foot; he only cares about the pain his father is in. This is true respect and love and stands out in stark contrast to the superficial love between Jin Li and her brother Chen. This is what family is all about.Then he understood.
His father's morphine pump.
They'd taken it, yanked it right out of the vein in his father's right arm. He needed a forty-milligram bolus of Dilaudid every hour, or the pain was-
"Yes, yes!" Ray screamed. "I'll do it! Yes, get me up!" (40).
2 comments:
Amazing job connecting it to our plays! It really makes sense and leads you into the backround of your book. I think the idea of the great contrasting love shown in completely different families in the same book is really unique. I think it will turn out as a cool contrast and create a good story. Not often do people use two entirely different families to develop a contrasting plot. This sounds like a really cool book. Nice post!
I agree with Christina, you did a great job relating your book to the plays we've been discussing in class. The stories are so different, but you've managed to tie them together quite nicely. It really proves how truly universal the themes in books can be.
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