“The Sun Is Also A Star” employed quotes that showed Nicola Yoon’s thoughts on love, fate, and the struggle for identity. In each statement, the characters opened their minds to the reader about their existence. From Natasha to Daniel and Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, each word spoken gave a glimpse of their reality and showed how interaction changed their perception of life. In the end, the quotes, directly and indirectly, forced the characters to rethink their life choices.
Love
There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.
Daniel Bae
Love is a strange feeling that can make two strangers become family. For Natasha and Daniel, love was magical as it made them, strangers from two different worlds, fall head over heels for each other in under 24 hours. Daniel made the statement above to recognize the power of love.
“I don’t believe in love.” “It’s not a religion,” he says. “It exists whether you believe in it or not.”
Daniel Bae
Before meeting Daniel, Natasha closed off her heart to love. She decided that love was just hormonal interactions in the body. She made the statement above, reiterating her ideology.
Nicola Yoon has talked about love and how though people write entire novels and songs about it, it can, in her words, ‘sometimes be pure unadulterated bullshit.’
The Struggle To Fit In
Don’t tell me I’ll be all right. I don’t know that place. I’ve been here since I was eight years old. I don’t know anyone in Jamaica. I don’t have an accent. I don’t know my family there, not the way you’re supposed to know family. It’s my senior year. What about prom and graduation and my friends?” I want to be worrying about the same dumb things they’re worrying about.
Natasha Kingsley
Natasha was a young girl who had dreams and aspirations. She wanted to be a data scientist and better the world with her skills. However, her family were immigrants who had to leave the country after her father got a DUI. Determined to fight and remain in America, she visited the ISCIS office and met Lester Barnes, a case officer.
When Lester tells her he has visited Jamaica and it is not as bad as she thinks, Natasha blows off. She tells Lester that he loves the country because he visited a resort. She told him he had no solid opinion of Jamaica, as he only saw its good sides. Natasha’s speech makes Lester reconsider his thought process.
Every interaction with these applicants saves her life just a little. At first they barely notice her. They dump their items into the bin and watch closely as they go through the machine. Most are suspicious that Irene will pocket loose change or a pen or keys or whatever. In the normal course of things, the applicant would never notice her, but she makes sure they do. It’s her only connection to the world.
Nicola Yoon
Irene was a security guard at the USCIS office who went unnoticed by the world around her. Everyone seemed to be in their worlds, and she felt unbearable loneliness. To cope with the depression, Irene subtly ensured others noticed her. She was just another security guard to them, but they were her lifeline.
Pain
Unmoored and uncertain, he’s drifted from city to city, apartment to apartment, job to job, anchored to the world by almost nothing. He has trouble falling asleep. The only thing that helps is watching late-night TV with the sound muted. The endless cascade of images stills his mind and sends him off to sleep.
Nicola Yoon
The conductor was a man whose life ended before he could realize it. After a nasty divorce, he became a shadow of himself and drifted from one place to another, working whatever job he could find. With no hope, the conductor lived like a robot and gave up on life until he found solace in a newly found faith.
It’s been two years, but the grieving has not left him, shows no signs of leaving until it’s taken everything from him. It has cost him his marriage, his smile, his ability to eat enough, sleep enough, and feel enough. It has cost him his ability to be sober. Which is why he almost ran over Natasha just now.
Nicola Yoon
Two years before “The Sun Is Also A Star,” Donald lost his daughter in an accident. Since then, his life turned upside down, as he lost everything and became an alcoholic. While driving drunk, he almost hit a young girl, and on realizing how his actions could have resulted in a tragedy just like his daughter’s, he discovered the universe was giving him a sign to stop his drinking.
The Art of Dreaming Big
We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.
Daniel Bae
A dream can be so big it makes a person fear. It can feel so far that one loses all hope in it. The quote above makes a bold assertion. Why fear the dream? Why fight it? Why not chase for the stars and see how far you reach?
Daniel and Natasha were two individuals with tiny lives in a world of billions, yet somehow, they found a way to fight through the terrible hurdles of life, and in the end, they came out on top. They were never slaves to the regret of not chasing their dreams.
Symmetries
“Symmetries”
Daniel Bae
A Poem by Daniel Jae Ho Bae
I will
stay on my
side. And you will
stay on an-
other.
The quote above is a beautiful poem by Daniel Bae. Though short, it tells a sad story of separation. It dives deep into Daniel’s poetic heart and shows his melancholy after leaving the girl he loves.
‘Symmetries’ is a one-stanza poem divided into five lines known as quintains. Though it does not follow a perfect rhyme scheme, there are some rhymes, like the first and third, which end in the same word, ‘will.’ The poem is a consistent manometer with one unstressed and stressed beat per line.
Emotionality
HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT REASONABLE creatures. Instead of being ruled by logic, we are ruled by emotions. The world would be a happier place if the opposite were true.
Natasha Kingsley
Natasha was a cynical person who saw the world in black and white. To her, life was a series of small coincidences that coagulate into massive events. When Daniel told her about how she was unemotional, she said emotions are the reason humans make stupid mistakes. She further explained that the world would be better if people considered facts instead of listening to the human heart and emotions.
Culture
Jesus. Save me from the nice and sincere boys who feel things too deeply. I still think what happened is funny in its perfect awfulness, but I understand his shame too. It’s hard to come from someplace or someone you’re not proud of.
Natasha Kingsley
Throughout the story of “The Sun Is Also A Star,” culture is a recurring theme. Daniel and Natasha were fighting the stereotypes of their cultures and trying to thrive above them. After Daniel’s father shows some racism to Natasha, Daniel continuously apologizes and is ashamed of his culture. However, Natasha understood that he did not have to apologize as other people’s actions were not his fault.
“You’re not your dad,” I say, but he doesn’t believe me. I understand his fear. Who are we if not a product of our parents and their histories?
Natasha Kingsley
After the ordeal with Dae Hyun Bae, Daniel apologized to Natasha. She noticed he was sad, and though she tried consoling him, she realized humans are just an extension of their immediate society; this made her formulate a theory that a person may be the continuation of their parent’s existence.
The Sun Is Also A Star
Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it’s our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.
Natasha Kingsley
Natasha had a straight view of the world. To her, some things were necessary to the functioning of life, and others were not. When she talks to Daniel, she tells him emotions are irrelevant and instead of chasing after dreams, one will be better off following the data and facts.
The statement above is her saying Daniel should be more grounded. She says poets chase after dreams and stars when they should focus on reality.
Broken Dreams
Sometimes, though, he still catches a glimpse of the old Natasha. She’ll give him a look like she used to when she was younger. It’s a look that wants something from him. A look that wants him to be more, do more, and love more. He resents it. Sometimes he resents her. Hasn’t he done enough already? She’s his first child. He’s already given up all his dreams for her.
Nicola Yoon
Samuel Kingsley was a man who wanted to reach the top of the world. He loved acting and traveled to New York City because he wanted to be on a stage. However, the birth of his daughter, Natasha, forced him to abandon his dream; this filled him with regret and resentment that broke the relationship he had with his beloved daughter.
The plane ascends, and the world I’ve known fades. The city lights recede to pinpricks, until they look like earthbound stars. One of those stars is Daniel. I remind myself that stars are more than just poetic.
Natasha Kingsley
Even after all the struggle and pain, Natasha could not fight the verdict issued to her family. She eventually returned to Jamaica and lost contact with Daniel. “The Sun Is Also A Star” portrays Natasha’s tragic romance and shattered dreams.
Fear
At some point later today, when he returns to his office, he will wordlessly take Hannah into his arms. He will hold her and wonder, very briefly, about the future that loving her will cost him.
Nicola Yoon
While working as a lawyer, Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald fell for his paralegal, Hannah Winters. However, he was on the fence about their relationship due to his marriage. After realizing that death could occur at any moment, he makes a decision that affects so many people’s lives, including Natasha, Daniel, his wife, and their children.
