In the book The Art of
Hearing Heartbeats, the thing I find the most interesting is this struggle
inside Julia between conforming to the different natures of her mom and her
dad. In most children, they carry traits from both parents, and for Julia, this
is difficult because both of her parents are so different. Judith, a fast-paced
New Yorker, is basically the product of the city – she wants things
immediately, and she lives her life through a busy schedule where her
expectations run high. Julia’s father, on the other hand, is the opposite – a Burmese
gentleman who takes things slowly and expects things as they come, and he
learns to live life simply, while Judith’s life and feelings are extremely
complex. With both of these contrasting natures, Julia finds herself stuck in
the middle. She follows her mother’s path when she longs for the busy nature of
New York when she is in Burma searching for her father, and she desires
immediate answers, like her mother would. However, a part of her is just like
her dad. The fact that she comes all the way to Burma in search of her father
and listens to a stranger for hours about her father’s childhood, which provides
no answers, proves that a part of her is just like Tin Win. The book shows some
evidence that she has always been closer to her father, like how she always
loved to listen to his fantasy stories when she was younger. However, the
traits in her mother always come back to her. For example, her immediate desire
is to find her father, not to hear his entire life story from U Ba, is
something her mother would want. Her life was formed in New York City, where a
selfish and impatient nature would come from. But her life was also formed by a
father who was raised in Burma, where life’s simplicities are the biggest
worry. These two clashing natures collide in Julia, and this creates an inner
conflict inside the narrator. Because we have only just started the book, I
cannot explain fully who Julia is more like. Throughout the novel, we discover
more of this mystery of her father that can later help us figure out if Julia
is more like her selfish yet passionate mother or her simple and loving father.
However, I don’t want Judith to seem like a hated character. I actually feel
for her the most because all she wanted was to be consumed by love, and Tin Win’s
selfless nature could never give her that love. This duality of nature is
definitely evident in Julia, and maybe we will find out that she is just an
exact product of the two parents. This conflicting personality may lead to
negative consequences, but I do believe that it will create her true persona. And
we might even find out that Tin Win isn’t the amazing man we see him as right
now (he did marry Judith, whom he really did not love…). Julia may completely
change her feelings towards her father once she finds out more of the truth,
and this may change her desire to conform to his Burmese nature. Either way, I’m
excited to see how her conflict plays out throughout the novel.
