d is lost in a museum, which represents cultural eras. Being lost in a museum proposes that David is not only lost geographically, but culturally. David’s inability to manipulate language in these two passages has caused him to become alienated and lost both geographically and culturally. In Passage 1, when David is geographically lost, he is alone. In Passage 2 however, Aunt Bertha accompanies him. The superficial significance of this particular difference is that in Passage 1, David has to face the world alone, whereas he can face the world together with a family member in Passage 2. Throughout the book, David seems to be mostly concerned with cultural and spiritual assimilation, rather than geographically belonging to a particular region. What is interesting is that in the latter one, David uses language whereas surprisingly, in Passage 2, David uses no language to follow. You would think that David should use language to try and acquire cultural assimilation and leave mere following to his geographical belonging desires, but as we see that is not the case. In Passage 2, he relies on instructions from Aunt Bertha, who seems to be more in control of the situation than David is. This should not surprise the reader when we find out that they remain lost throughout their entire museum trip because Aunt Bertha has very little freedom with the English language. Although language does not restrict the movements of Aunt Bertha and David, it does restrict their freedom and confines them to an imaginary bubble where interactions rarely, if ever, do occur with the outside world. This is the heart of the dilemma of the immigrant allegory concerned with being lost because they have no control over language.There are certain clues that appear unseen throughout Passage 1 and 2 to the characters, but illustrate to the reader David and Aunt Bertha’s struggle with the English language is paralleled with a universal immigrant a...
