The children are out of touch with their father who was in prison and now returns. The youngest child is particularly critical of his father's return and even rejects it. The rejection was partly because the returning father had not previously met him because the mother got pregnant at the time of his arrest ten years before ( Nasiri & Johnson-Davies, 2009). Therefore, he was totally out of touch with the children especially the younger one who he sees for the very first time. The second reason why it was difficult for him to accept his father’s reunion was that he believed that being that he was a prisoner; he was a coward who had surrendered so that he could remain alive. The narrator is utterly surprised with the mixed emotions elicited with his family members on his return because most of them are unfounded and unwarranted such as the belief that he is a coward.
Ang (2007) asserted that the white Terror was a contextual concept that had several meanings depending on the country in which it was used. In Taiwan, it meant the suppression of those who opposed political policies those fronted by authoritarian states. The period of the white terror lasted for almost have of a century. The ‘'hungry ghosts'' on the other hand were political prisoners that ate the types of foods that they were not authorized to do so. Most prisoners avoided being ‘'hungry ghosts'' because they understood how fatal the implication was. The story obsesses on beef noodles because it was the main food which political dissidents were allowed to buy. The food was referred to as ‘’beef noodles’’ because beef happened to be the main ingredient.
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To many people, life imprisonment is the end of everything. Blandiana in her short story approves this by giving the atrocities that life-imprisoned inmates are subjected to in the prisons. The inside of the window is dark, and most jailers are ruthless and angry with the prisoners. It is asserted that ‘'anyone who gets in here will never see light of day again’’ (Blandiana, n.d). Blandiana therefore insinuates that the life imprisoned individuals do not have hope in ever interacting with the outside world. ‘’You only imagine that it is a real window.’’ This means that one would only imagine interacting with the outside world but the truth is that that is far from reality.
References
Ang L. (2007). Beef Noodles. Chinese Literature Today. Vol. 2 No. 2.
Blandiana (n.d). The Open Window. Review of Contemporary Fiction.
Nasiri, B. A., & Johnson-Davies, D. (2009). The Return of the Prisoner. Southwest Review , 94 (1), 66-72.
