Care, Precarity, and Chosen Kinship: Reimagining Family in Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness 2025

Abstract

This research paper examines how Ocean Vuong’s novel The Emperor of Gladness (2025) reconstructs the concept of family through the interwoven experiences of care, precarity, and chosen kinship. The study goes beyond the conventional biological epistemologies and sees elective affinities as an important survival mechanism for the outsider of the mainstream dealing with an insecure world. The analysis is centred on the concept of care as an intentional ethical practice, not just an emotion.