Trauma and Healing in The Emperor of Gladness
In Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness, wounds are inherited and cumulative — war, addiction, loss, and systemic violence shape every character. Healing, Vuong suggests, is not a triumphant cure but a halting, often backward-moving process. Characters recover through small rituals, shared storytelling, and unexpected connections that offer temporary grace. This analysis traces that arc across the novel’s key moments, exploring how Hai, Grazina, Sony, and others find fragile ways to survive. For a full overview, see the book page.
From the Bridge to the Backyard: A First Step
Chapter 2 opens with Hai standing on King Philip’s Bridge, ready to jump. A floating bedsheet startles him, and elderly Grazina Vitkus shouts him down. She brings him inside her decaying house, renames him “Labas,” and leads him to the backyard to crush dinner rolls with his feet — a ritual she uses to dispel sorrow. The act is physical and wordless; it allows Hai to release some of the weight he carries. He accepts a room, wearing the dead friend’s UPS jacket that he took from Noah’s barn. The UPS jacket becomes a symbol of carrying the dead while continuing to move. Grazina’s own trauma — hinted at by her Lithuanian past and the hidden photograph of her younger self at a raffle — remains largely unspoken, but her instinct to offer care becomes the first gesture of recovery.
The Lie of Medical School and the Truth of Addiction
Hai’s backstory, revealed through flashback, shows how trauma expresses itself as a desperate attempt to restore hope. After his grandmother’s death, he tells his mother he was accepted into an MD program in Boston. In the scene, his mother’s face brightens with relief — “God has answered my prayers” — yet the lie is unsustainable. Hai never enrolls. Instead, he ends up at New Hope rehab, where a counselor named José explains that his depression is “clinical,” meaning there is no identifiable cause. The environment is a kingdom of boredom: patients paint watercolors, read YA novels, and trade drugs in group sessions. A nurse named Wanda slips Werther’s Originals into Hai’s pocket. The Mary Oliver quote taped to the wall — “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — haunts the space. Hai stays sober for forty-seven days, then swallows Percocet and codeine after finding Grazina asleep in the tub. The relapse is not a failure of will but a return to the only comfort he knows. The corn bread that Sony later makes at HomeMarket becomes a counter-symbol — modest, daily provision that sustains without lying.
The Road Trip and the Absent Diamond
In Chapter 23, the crew drives to Devil’s Leap State Park, where Sony’s father died in a car fire. They find only a half-burned headrest. Sony kneels, gives a Civil War speech, and breaks down weeping. Maureen wraps the headrest in her apron. Hai later learns that Sony’s father, Uncle Minh, was not a soldier but a laundry worker killed by an American grenade snag on his watch — a death unglamorous and unrecorded. The group searches for a lost diamond and finds nothing. On the drive back, Maureen sings “The Parting Glass” and gives Sony a scratch-off ticket. Spring buds appear, but Hai sees them as false. Healing here is collective: the willingness to witness another’s grief without needing to fix it. The singing and the ticket are small gestures that say, I see you. The owl collection that Grazina keeps — porcelain witnesses to her own losses — echoes this theme of quiet attention.
The Salamander Migration and Letting Go
The night before Grazina is taken to Hamilton Home, Hai and she spend their last evening watching TV and eating Stouffer’s. At dawn, a massive migration of salamanders crosses the parking lot. Hai is awed by their bravery — tiny creatures moving en masse toward an unknown destination. He kisses Grazina’s forehead as they listen to the swarm. Earlier, during her stay at the medical facility, Grazina’s memory fails; she asks who she is, and Hai cannot answer. He whispers Lithuanian words and says he is drifting. The salamanders offer a natural model of persistence: you move forward even when you cannot see the end. Grazina’s own brain is “collapsing slowly inside her skull,” yet she can still sing “Silent Night” and call Hai “Labas.” Healing, the novel suggests, does not require intact memory — only the capacity to show up.
Contradictions and Unfinished Work
Vuong refuses a redemptive arc. Hai relapses. Grazina loses herself. Sony’s hydrocephalus scar remains. The search for the diamond yields nothing. Yet small rituals persist: crushing bread, making origami penguins with clipped wings, eating Pop-Tarts in a bathtub pretending to drive to Gettysburg. These acts do not erase trauma but create space for connection. The UPS jacket is never removed; the dead are never let go. Instead, characters learn to carry them differently. The corn bread is both nourishment and a reminder of scarcity. The owl collection watches, silent. Healing in this novel is a practice of noticing — of being present to the brokenness and to the moments of grace that break through anyway.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does the ritual of crushing dinner rolls function as a healing practice?
Answer: Grazina’s backyard ritual allows Hai to physically discharge sorrow through his feet. It is a sensory, non-verbal act that bypasses speech, offering release without requiring explanation. The gesture is repeated throughout the novel as a model of embodied care.
2. Why does Hai lie about medical school, and what does this reveal about his understanding of healing?
Answer: Hai lies to restore his mother’s hope after her mother’s death. He believes that offering a story of future success can heal her present grief. This reveals his flawed but compassionate view that healing can be manufactured through narrative — a belief that eventually collapses when he cannot sustain the lie.
3. What role does collective mourning play in the road trip to Devil’s Leap?
Answer: The group’s search for Sony’s father’s headrest and their shared singing of “The Parting Glass” transforms private grief into communal ritual. Wrapping the headrest in an apron and giving a scratch-off ticket are small acts that make mourning bearable through shared attention.
4. How does Grazina’s deteriorating memory complicate the theme of healing?
Answer: Grazina’s Alzheimer’s means she forgets painful pasts but also loses the ability to hold onto healing moments. Yet her instinct to care for Hai persists through touch and song, suggesting that healing can exist in embodied routines and affection even without conscious memory.
5. Why does the salamander migration appear just before Grazina’s departure?
Answer: The migration offers a natural image of bravery and persistence against overwhelming odds. It provides a moment of wonder shared between Hai and Grazina, a final connection before loss. The salamanders’ mass movement mirrors the characters’ own halting progress toward survival — not victorious, but continuing.