Week 9 closed topic - "Missing" Explication

While alienation and isolation are key overall themes in "Missing" I found that the more uplifting and important theme is that of acceptance and assimilation. I would like to discuss how the things said about his daughter bring this to realization. We know from the first paragraph when discussing his blonder than blond hair that this character feels some sort of isolation in his new home because of where he came from and his past. We see his first fixation on how this will effect his daughter when he describes her hair " it has this color that belongs to no one else here, not my wife, not me". Then just a few paragraphs later he says " I could see Hoa's face for a moment there, caught full in the sunlight, and in this light parts of her body that she had because of me seemed very clear, the highness of her brow, the half expressed roundness of the lids of her eyes, the length of her nose, the wideness of her mouth, her hair neither dark, nor light. And I had a twist of sadness for her, as if she had gotten from me imperfect cells". We see here that he fears feelings of isolation for his daughter. We see that he has great guilt for attaching his past to her. His daughter carries all of the Anglican features that muddy her per Vietnamese features, however on sentence in this story turns everything around, it takes us from isolation to acceptance and assimilation. " She lifted the dragon high with both hands and raised it over her, and she slowly brought it down: her hair, her brow disappeared into the dragon, her eyes and her nose and her mouth, my daughter' face disappeared into great bright eyes, flared nostrils, cheeks of blood red and a brow of green". I took the dragon to symbolize the village and the families in it. The dragon swallows all of those Anglican features that he gave her and she plays with the children and they laugh. Just as his daughter brow, hair, mouth and nose became the dragon he has "become" a member of this village, HIS village. The statement he later makes "all brought together by my child" once again reinforces that like his child and her features he and his are a part of the family in this village.