Happiness Falls

Throughout Happiness Falls, Angie Kim addresses the complexities and paradoxes of language, silence, and meaning. As the sister of a brother with autism and AS, Mia describes communication as the “the focal point around which our families’ lives have come to orbit” (102). Kim emphasizes the importance of linguistic choices, as well as the inconsistencies and paradoxes of language, which Mia describes as “a funny thing” (309). Further, the novel also foregrounds the meanings of silence. Most centrally, Kim argues that the Korean American experience comes with an ingrained bias for verbal acuity as representative of intelligence. Rejecting this binary approach, Kim suggests that communication is nuanced, and that intelligence is not necessarily correlative to language skills.

The novel questions the purpose of euphemism, wondering about its tendency to obscure or cushion meaning. After a school assembly featuring police officers, Mia came up to Detective Janus to “discuss the police officials’ use of the phrase committed suicide [...] you commit a crime, commit fraud, murder, sin; you don’t commit strokes or depression” (32). As a well-read progressive, Mia takes issue with the outdated term, preferring the more neutral “died by suicide.” For Detective Janus, the distinction is semantic—she sees the adjusted language as an unwillingness to face the reality of the event.