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Cyclopedia of Literary Places

Everything I Never Told You

Author: Celeste Ng

Date published: 2014

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Family saga

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Lydia Lee is found dead at the bottom of the lake near her family's home in Middlewood, Ohio. As her family copes with this tragedy they are confronted with all that has been left unsaid throughout the years—their desires and dreams, their pain and demons, their relationships and lack thereof. Before they can heal, the Lee family must surface and reckon with all that they have never told each other.

Middlewood. A fictional college town of three thousand in northwest Ohio, where the Lee family lives. Middlewood is representative of small-town, suburban America, and displays the difficulties non-white people face in these towns. It represents disappointment for James Lee, who sought a teaching position at Harvard but instead was forced to settle for Middlewood College, and his wife Marilyn Lee, who wanted to become a doctor but instead settled into a domestic life here. The small size of Middlewood also makes the family stand out because of their race. They are the only Chinese people in the town, which leads to discrimination and makes it difficult for Lydia to find friends. Similarly, after Lydia's death, the local newspaper runs stories about it continuously for weeks because it is a major story for the town, which prevents the family from truly dealing with their grief and moving on.

The Lee home. The different parts of the Lee home reflect and reveal all the problems in the family. The kitchen is where the family's absences are most obvious. During both the summer in which Marilyn Lee leaves and the summer of Lydia's death, their absences are symbolized in an empty chair or a missed meal. The deadbolt on the front door Marilyn implements after Lydia's death symbolizes the family seeking to keep the world outside and their own thoughts and emotions locked inside. Lydia's room symbolizes all that she kept from her family prior to her death—her bookshelf full of the books Marilyn forced her to read, and empty diaries revealing nothing about her meager life and her thoughts leading to her suicide. Marilyn spends most days after Lydia's death in Lydia's room, hoping that the room itself will reveal Lydia's secrets to her and help her to understand Lydia's death.

The lake. A lake up the street from the Lee home is where Lydia dies. The lake symbolizes all that is left below the surface in the Lee family, all the secrets and lies, and when Lydia's body surfaces, so too does all that the family never shared.

*Toledo. A city in northwest Ohio, which represents an escape for Marilyn Lee. One summer she decided to leave her family and finish her studies to become a doctor. Toledo provided her the freedom and independence she had been missing since she and James began their family.

*Radcliffe. A women's college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the sister school to Harvard before they integrated. Marilyn Lee attended Radcliffe in 1955 and faced sexism from the intellectual community. Her desire to be a doctor was mocked at Radcliffe, pushing her to work harder to prove their stereotypes false. The sexism she faced at Radcliffe left a mark on Marilyn that stayed with her for the rest of her life, and eventually drove her to push Lydia obsessively to achieve what she could not.

*Harvard. The oldest college in America, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard holds different significance for the various members of the Lee family. For the parents, it simultaneously represents the American Dream and the Dream-deferred. While Harvard provides James and Marilyn the opportunity to learn and improve their position in life, they are still considered “Others” and unable to truly fit in due to James's race and Marilyn's gender. This Otherness comes to the forefront when James is not offered a teaching position at Harvard and instead must move his family to Middlewood. For Nath, Harvard represents an escape from the oppressive repression of his family, an opportunity to be his own man.

*Charlottesville. A city in central Virginia, where Marilyn Lee was raised by her single mother. Marilyn's mother was the opposite of Marilyn—domestically inclined, unwilling to push the boundaries of where she was or what she wanted to do. Charlottesville became stifling for the independent, ambitious Marilyn, and she happily left the city and never returned until after the death of her mother and all that she represented to Marilyn.

Lloyd Academy. A private school in Iowa. When James Lee was young, his Chinese-immigrant family moved to Iowa from California, where James passed the entrance exam and was permitted to attend Lloyd. His twelve years at Lloyd provided James a greater opportunity to learn and succeed, but he “never felt at home.” James has some of his first real confrontations with racism at Lloyd, racism that he will be burdened with and forced to compensate for all his life.

—Sean Townsend

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
"Everything I Never Told You." Cyclopedia of Literary Places,Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=CLP_0410.
APA 7th
Everything I Never Told You. Cyclopedia of Literary Places,Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=CLP_0410.
CMOS 17th
"Everything I Never Told You." Cyclopedia of Literary Places,Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=CLP_0410.