Do you think May and Otto’s attempts at manipulating parental genetics were successful with Nick? In what ways did their attempts to prioritize Matthew’s DNA succeed? What do you think Khong is trying to communicate here about how a person grows and develops traits, whether genetically or through learned behaviors?
The manipulation of genes resulted in distrust, isolation, and lies. Nope; not successful. Nature vs. Nurture reigns, not necessarily evenly, but both affect who we are and will become.
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May and Otto’s attempts were partially successfully in that Nick looked so much like Matthew and not at all like Lily. In this story, the author prioritizes upbringing over genetics in how people behave. People are products of their environment, but are curious about their heritage.
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The manipulation was successful only because it made Matthew look like his Dad while essentially erasing his Chinese heritage. It was not successful in that it destroyed lives
Manipulation gone bad! I don’t think they were successful. Nick looked less like Lily and more like Matthew. Maybe that would have been okay if Matthew had found his place in society. He lived in between two cultures and had problems adjusting to both. Somethings just aren’t meant to be and not manipulated.
Manipulating genetics to make better offspring is not a good practice. If there are deficiencies/abnormalities/genetic illnesses, etc., then science should be used to better the world.
Science is about thr hypothetical. I believe that as scientist May and Otto believed they could prove something unique and useful about the manipulation of DNA. The unfortunate long term outcome was more real than anticipated. In my opinion, Khong portrayed May as a suffocating mother, unable to express both the science behind the theory and the parental love toward her daughter. Hiding away in a small, isolated town, withholding information about Lily’s history and therefore only making her more insecure. Nick faired only slightly better due to his finacial situation being better off. Both Lily and Nick experienced distrust, loss of connection and difficulty in finding a deep, sustanible love.
This manipulation felt a lot like eugenics to me. They were not going so far as to not allow people with disabilities (or mental illness, or poor, or for whatever reason seen as less than by society) to breed. But they were consciously breeding this out of them. They also never really explained why they thought that Nick having more of Matthew’s genes would be better. Is it because May thought so little of Lily. There did not seem to be anything wrong with Lily’s genes that needed to be bred out. It would actually seem to me that they would want less of Matthew because of the history of two suicides in his family (his mom and brother). I think it was interesting that Sam, who had less of Matthew in him, had more depression, addiction and mental illness.
I think this was an interesting nature vs nurture debate as although Nick looked more like his father, he seemed to be more like his mother in all the ways that mattered. He had her ethical code. May said that she could see Lily’s mannerisms in him.
I keep wondering if this kind of manipulation is even possible with contemporary science (let alone when the manipulations would have happened). I don’t know the answer to that, but because of my uncertainty about the “reality” of such a manipulation, it was easy for me to approach it as metaphorical on the author’s part. Was she saying that the dominant White culture would mold Nick more than would his Chinese ancestry? Was she saying that Matthew’s wealthy and powerful family would influence Nick more than Lily’s family could? Similarly to Laura_D, I think that Rachel Khong may have been trying to show us Nick’s environment would influence him far more profoundly than his biology (even though he looked just like Matthew). Like many others, I think that May and Otto’s attempts, both with Nick and earlier with Lily and Matthew’s brothers, may have been at least partially successful in a biological sense, but they were profoundly damaging in the pain they created.
I agree wholeheartedly. Even though it erased the Asian heritage, it was not successful, it continued to destroy all of their ives.