In the first section of Novel Without a Name, during the first instance of analepsis (denoted via italics), Quan recalls in great detail his brother’s birth. He describes his mother’s pain, his fear, and finally his little brother’s “little hands” and “little reddened feet” (14). Quan’s mother giving birth and the image of his brother as a tiny, red being in a basin becomes a recurring symbol in the novel. Quan’s vision comes back to him in force when he visits home and learns that his brother was killed. He thinks, “My mother’s horrific childbirth cry pierced through me. An earthenware basin. Water splashing. Two little red legs that kicked and kicked…Why was he kicking?” (120). Quan cannot reconcile his vision of his brother as a new person, fighting for life, with his death, which arrives for no good reason.

From then on, Quan is struck by the same vision of his mother’s pain and his brother kicking in a bowl when Quan has moments of distress or doubt. As Quan’s internal journey continues, his dreams of that moment twist and become more macabre, to the point where he dreams of his mother attempting to nurse his dead brother’s skeleton.