The short story “How to Pronounce Knife” by Souvankham Thammavongsa is about an immigrant family moving to a Western country from Laos. The daughter’s name is Joy, and she is a first grader. She feels different from the other children, and wants to fit in. One day Joy asks her father for help to pronounce the word “knife”, but he unintentionally mispronounces it. Later when she is reading out loud for the class, she makes the same mistake and gets embarrassed. When she comes home, she does not correct her father and instead tells him she won a puzzle. In the end of the story, they are sitting and making the puzzle, and she realizes that there are some things that she must learn on her own.
What happens when a child realizes that their parents cannot always guide them? This question is central in the short story. It does not only show how difficult it can be to come from a different culture, but also how much pressure there is placed on a child to fit into a new society.
In the story there are both external and internal conflicts. The external conflict is between Joy and her surroundings, especially her classmates and teacher. We are introduced to her struggle when the teacher asks Joy to read out loud to the class. Everything is going well until she comes to the word “knife.” She pronounces it the way her father taught her, but the teacher is not satisfied and encourages her to try again. After some time of not knowing what to do, a classmate corrects her which makes Joy feel embarrassed. This indicates a conflict between Joy and the school environment where she does not fit in due to her language skills and background.
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