Summary Of On Such A Full Sea By Chang-Rae Lee

Throughout On Such a Full Sea, Chang-Rae Lee presents a futuristic American society which has settled itself into three different hierarchical levels. In the strictly structured routine which involves B-mors providing food and supply in return for security from the elite Charter class, the act of disrupting the system or even questioning it is very unlikely. As Lee’s character Fan breaks away from her daily life in the fish tanks of B-mor in search of the one she loves, she has unknowingly inspired the people back home and everyone she meets along the way with the notorious story of the girl who defied the government’s rigid conduct, ultimately leaving a path to follow. On Such a Full Sea does not argue the question as to “whether [or not] we are ‘individuals’”, but, instead, “whether being an ‘individual’ makes a difference” (Lee). Through the character ‘Fan’, Lee expresses that one can make a difference in
It began with the simple action of a cracker being thrown into a pond by a young boy, which lead to another person throwing something else into the water, and eventually a “full-scale onslaught” of food was thrown into the pond. Almost immediately, park regulation forces came to the scene as “the young and old and parents and strollers scatter[ed] in every direction like just-disrupted ants” (Lee 95). By comparing the citizens who took part in the onslaught to scattering ants when government forces arrived, it is suggested that the action of throwing food into the water was a small spark of acting out against the government in order to send a message, likely in direct relation to Fan’s actions. With Fan’s exit from B-mor, she created a spark that caused one person at a time, and then all at once, to “act freely..make decisions..and form opinions” (Lee) of their own, even if it has been just