國 立 交 通 大 學
外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
碩 士 論 文
韓美作家李昌來《母語人士》與《漂泊歲月》中的
雙文化成長敘事
Reading the Bicultural Narratives of Bildung in
Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker and A Gesture Life
研究生：王曄勝
指導教授：馮品佳 博士
韓美作家李昌來《母語人士》與《漂泊歲月》中的
雙文化成長敘事
研究生：王曄勝 指導教授：馮品佳 博士
國立交通大學外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班
摘 要
本論文乃藉由成長小說(Bildungsroman)的觀點來探討李昌來《母語人士》與《漂 泊歲月》中韓裔美籍人士的國族認同議題。兩書中的主角，亨利派克(Henry Park)與黑 旗時蕗(Jiro Kurohata)，為了在美國得到歸屬感進而選擇壓抑自身韓國性(Koreanness) 與自我，並利用同化策略(assimilation)以融入美國主流白人文化。因此，我將在此論文 探討主角們的認同危機與其追尋自我的旅程。藉由此分析，我將探討李昌來對韓美認 同議題的看法並重新定位韓/亞美人在美國的社會地位，進而提出於國族認同議題中取 得平衡以達雙文化並存層面的可能性。全文共分四章。第一章旨在探討韓美文學的變 遷與成長小說的特色並藉此導入李昌來此兩小說的基本架構。第二章與第三章則分別 探討《母語人士》與《漂泊歲月》中主角的成長教育過程(the process of Bildung)。第 二章企圖從語言認同方面切入主角亨利派克的國族認同觀點，在一段自我探尋後亨利 不再堅持自己的美籍身份，也不會為了單一美國文化而排斥自身的韓國性。第三章則 希望藉由少數族裔模範(Model Minority discourse)與創傷(trauma)的交互影響，帶進主角 黑旗時蕗的國族認同議題。最後，於第四章總結全文。透過兩主角的成長教育，李昌 來於書中指出韓/亞美人不該以同化為最終目標，進而喪失原民族的文化特色，而是須 將韓/亞美人視為一種新的身份，一種能同時包容兩種甚至多種不同文化層面的身份 別。 關鍵詞：成長小說、成長教育、語言認同、少數族裔模範、創傷、《母語人士》、 《漂泊歲月》、李昌來Reading the Bicultural Narratives of Bildung in Chang-rae Lee’s
Native Speaker and A Gesture Life
Postgraduate: Yeh-sheng Wang Advisor: Dr. Pin-chia Feng
Graduate Institute of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics
National Chiao Tung University
ABSTRACT
The thesis aims to explore how Chang-rae Lee deploys the genre of the Bildungsroman to discuss the dilemma with respect to ethnic and national identity in his Native Speaker and A Gesture
Life. In order to get a sense of belonging, the two protagonists in the novels, Henry Park and Jiro
Kurohata, choose to suppress their Koreanness as well as selfhood, and embrace mainstream white culture in America through assimilation. I would like to explore their identity crises and journeys of searching for their selfhood in this thesis. Via the analysis, I delve into Lee’s thinking toward identity, along with his suggestion for Korean/ Asian Americans to relocate their social status in the US. That is, being a bicultural person is very possible for them to solve the dilemma between ethnic and national identity.
The thesis includes four chapters. Chapter One investigates the transition of Korean American literature and the features of the Bildungsroman, both of which constitute the framework of the two novels. The following two chapters discuss the processes of the protagonists’ Bildung in Native
Speaker and A Gesture Life respectively. In Chapter Two, I attempt to explore Henry Park’s
viewpoints about the issue of ethnic and national identity from the linguistic identity. After his process of Bildung, Henry does not insist on the American identity, nor does he reject his
Koreanness in order to be a real American. Moreover, he grasps the significance to be what he is. In Chapter Three, I examine the change of Jiro Kurohata’s attitude toward the issue of ethnic and national identity under the interweaving effect of his traumas and the model minority discourse. During the process of his Bildung, Hata gradually realizes the model minority discourse is nothing but an illusion. It is impossible for him to turn into an American with the help of the discourse. Finally, I make a conclusion in Chapter Four. With the Bildungs of the two protagonists, Chang-rae Lee suggests that Korean/ Asian Americans do not need to lose their ethnic culture due to
assimilation. Instead, they should regard “the Korean/ Asian American” as a new identity, a kind of identification that contains two or even more cultures at the same time.
Keywords: Bildungsroman, Bildung, linguistic identity, model minority discourse, trauma, Native
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First, I would like to express the deepest gratitude to my dear advisor, Dr. Pin-chia Feng. Without her patient guidance, the thesis would not be finished successfully. Then, I would like to say thank you to my dear friends and classmates, such as Bonnie, Elsa, Jade, Howard, Terence, and Lawrence. All of them help or encourage me to go through the
distressing writing of my thesis. Finally, I would like to present the thesis to my dear family, including my mother, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and my late father.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Introduction: From Korean American
Literature to the Bildungsroman ………...1
1.1 Chang-rae Lee and his Writing Career ………….………...4
1.2 Korean American Literature and Chang-rae Lee’s Novels ………..6
1.3 Literature Review ………...…11
1.4 The Bildungsroman and Chang-rae Lee ………13
Chapter Two
Who Am I? : A Spy’s Identification
In Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker ………21
2.1 Enchantment of Language ………..23
2.2 A Good Performer in His Life? ………...27
2.3 The Emile Luzan and John Kwang Assignments ………...…30
3.4 The Bildung of a Spy ……….……….35
Chapter Three
Beyond Perfection: The Bildung of a Model
Minority in Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life ………..41
3.1 A Reason for Living in Japan ………...43
3.2 Power of Love ………47
3.3 New Life, Old Tricks ………..50
3.4 Nothing but Illusions ………..…53
3.5 National Identity vis-à-vis Ethnic Identity ……….55
3.6 The Bildung of a Model Minority ………..59
Chapter Four
Conclusion: Becoming a Bicultural Person ..………..64
4.1 The Tears of the Aliens in America ………64
4.2 The Introspection of the Aliens and Their Descendants ……….66
4.3 To Be “A Part” or “Apart,” That Is the Question ………70
Reading the Bicultural Narratives of Bildung in Chang-rae Lee’s
Native Speaker and A Gesture Life Chapter 1
Introduction:
From Korean American Literature to the Bildungsroman
[T]he “dominant culture” is far from monolithic. . . . [T]he concept of the “mainstream” as monolith is a strategy employed to maintain the power of those who see themselves as members of that mainstream; such “unity” forms the foundation for the myth of universalism. (339)
Donald C. Goellnicht, “Blurring Boundaries” For immigrants and their descendants, to be well assimilated into the dominant culture in the new country seems to be top on the list of their aspirations. Only by doing so, they can really view themselves as authentic members of the country.
However, many contemporary immigrant writers, such as Chang-rae Lee, do not think so. Now they are trying to figure out a new meaning for their living and identity in the immigratory country. As Shirley Geok-lin Lim states, “[t]he literatures being
produced today by immigrant populations reflect, address, express, and reconstruct the late-twentieth-century preoccupation with and interrogation of concepts of
‘identity,’ ‘home,’ and ‘nation’” (294). Indeed the novels written by Chang-rae Lee, a Korean American writer, are mostly concerned with the very issues of identity, home, and nation as well. The protagonists in his books—Henry Park as a Korean American in Native Speaker (1995) and Franklin Hata as a Japanese American in A Gesture Life (1999)—strive to find a home for themselves in the new country. With a view to achieving the goal, both Henry and Hata choose to suppress their original ethnicity and selfhood, and embrace mainstream white culture in America. Nevertheless, even with this determination to assimilate, they still have to face family crises, to
interrogate their status in society, and ultimately to come to an identity that is not fixed but flexible to a certain extent. To be more specific, in order to survive in the US, Henry constantly ignores his Korean identity, hoping to be taken as a common
American through assimilation. His wife, though, cannot endure his philosophy of life and leaves him. Similarly, to integrate into the American life, Hata is proud to be a model minority and to be accepted by the people in Bedley Run, only at the cost of his self. His adopted daughter does not appreciate his good-man mindset anymore and leaves home as well. These family crises force Henry and Hata to rethink their stances regarding ethnic as well as national identity. Eventually, they come to a reconciliation between nation and ethnicity. This process of the awakening of their self characterizes the narratives of Bildung in Native Speaker and A Gesture Life. In this thesis, I would like to explore Henry’s and Hata’s identity crises and journeys of searching for their selfhood.
Furthermore, Henry and Hata actually put more emphasis on national identity than on ethnic identity. As long as they have a fixed national identity, it seems to them, they can have a sense of belonging which they always long for. As Jan E. Stets and Peter J. Burke point out, “a social identity is a person’s knowledge that he or she belongs to a social category or group. A social group is a set of individuals who hold a common social identification or view themselves as members of the same social category” (225). Both Henry and Hata hope to get a fixed and secure national identity by means of social identity. Therefore, they struggle to be well assimilated into the white social category. However, assimilation greatly influences their racial identity because the identity of a person is something that is “self-assigned and assigned by others” (Berner 10). For nonwhite immigrants and their offspring who long to be identified with the mainstream society in America, their racial identity is very likely to
be affected by white people, and may change with “psychological variation” (Carter 6). That is to say, “[a] member of a cultural or racial group may or may not identify with membership in that group” (Carter 6). This is because Henry and Hata want to be treated equally like whites, only at the expense of their original ethnic identity. In their cases, they would like to be regarded as ordinary Americans and live in the US
without being racially discriminated against and alienated. Thus, they try to accept white culture and ignore their original ethnicity and self, for they believe this is the best way to become like a white. Through identifying with the white and accepting white culture, they think they can be viewed as white Americans, which enables them to identify with America, to own an “American” identity. However, their family crises urge them to reconsider this premise.
Moreover, as Carter mentions, racial and national identity represents “ego differentiation of the personality” (7). In other words, once Henry and Hata change their attitude toward identity and rescue their selfhood, the characteristics of their personalities will become more distinguished and unique. The development of racial and national identity can be affected by external factors, such as influences from peers, family, or institutions. Compared to these, more developing and differentiated racial and national identity will be “internally derived through a personal process of exploration, discovery, integration, and maturation” (Carter 7), which refers to self-education as Bildung. Through the process of their personal Bildung, Henry and Hata have a different perspective on the issue of identity. In the meantime, their attitude toward their original ethnicity and self has changed in the long run. They will not despise their birth community or ignore who they are. Actually, their situations can account for the embarrassing situation of the Asian Americans. Just as Young-oak Lee criticizes, “Asian Americans face perhaps a perennial dilemma of whether . . . they ever will be able to assimilate into American society” (146). Nevertheless, with
Henry’s and Hata’s Bildungs, Chang-rae Lee also provides his viewpoints and solution for Asian Americans to rethink their location in American society. Thus, I intend to explore how Lee deploys the genre of the Bildungsroman to discuss the dilemma with respect to ethnic and national identity in this thesis. I will also delve into Lee’s thinking toward identity, along with his suggestion for Asian Americans to relocate their social status in the US.
The very first issue to be explored is the reason why Chang-rae Lee feels like taking the topic of identity as the major theme in his writing. In addition to identity, his fiction also involves the issues of war, sociopolitical circumstances, Korean American history, sex/ sexuality, and multiculturalism, all of which are significant concerns in the tradition of Korean American literature. More specifically, what follows will focus on the connection between Korean American literature and Lee’s novels. At the same time, I will provide a literature review concerning Lee’s novels and explain why I want to read the novels as Bildungsromans. After this, I will delve into the tradition of Bildungsroman and discuss how the genre is deployed in the novels. Mainly I argue that by using the genre, Lee successfully combines the issues of identity with other features of Korean American writing.
1.1 Chang-rae Lee and his Writing Career
Chang-rae Lee was born in 1965 and immigrated with his family to the United States from Korea at the age of three. He graduated from Yale University with a B. A. in English, and then received an M. A. in creative writing from the University of Oregon. So far, he has published three novels, including Native Speaker (1995), A
released on March 1, 2010.1 Lee has won numerous awards, such as the Hemingway/ PEN Award, QPB’s New Voices Award, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, Asian American Literary Award for Fiction, and one of the twenty best
American writers under forty selected by the New Yorker.2 Now he serves as the director of the creative writing program at Princeton University.
On the faculty website of Princeton University, Lee states that he is fascinated by “people who find themselves in positions of alienation or some kind of cultural
dissonance.” Thus, the characters in his novels are always related to those “who are thinking about the culture and how they fit or don't fit into it,” which seems to be his own doubt as well. When interviewed by Pam Belluck, Lee revealed that he had an English name “Chuck” once, but changed it back to “Chang-rae” soon because all of those English names felt wrong except for his Korean name. What is more, he mentioned that his mother wished and pushed him to learn English well. She wanted him to be successful in every aspect so that he would not be seen as an alien. His mother’s opinion appears to have had a great effect on him and even on his writing career. “I wonder now, did I become a writer because I was just so afraid I wouldn’t fit in?” said Lee, for “his very fear of inadequacy with the language and the culture drove him to master English in its most challenging form, literature” (Belluck). With writing, he starts on a searching journey “for his own ethnic definition of himself” (Belluck). Identity, consequently, becomes the central issue in his writing.
In Lee’s fiction, however, we can observe not only query about identity but also some contemporary concerns of Asian/ Korean American literature, such as sex/ sexuality, diaspora, or heterogeneity. More precisely, his writing is closely connected
1
The information of The Surrendered (2010) comes from Books Online Bookstore on May 6, 2010. The keyword is The Surrendered or Chang-rae Lee. Please browse the website below:
<www.books.com.tw>.
2
These award-winning records can be found from Lee’s faculty profile at the website of Princeton University <http://www.princeton.edu/arts/arts_at_princeton/creative_writing/> and an interview by Ron Hogan posted online <http://www.beatrice.com/interviews/lee/>.
with the main issues of Asian/ Korean American literature, which induces the
discussion on identity. Therefore, in the following, I will explore the tradition and the innovation of Asian/ Korean American writing, and then scrutinize how they are related to Lee’s conception of identity.
1.2 Korean American Literature and Chang-rae Lee’s Novels
Asian American literature, as King-Kok Cheung explains, emerged from the impact of the Civil Rights movement in the late 1960s, and can be defined as works written by people of Asian descent born in or immigrating to North America (1).3 Cheung goes on to indicate that Asian American writing, to this day, has had several significant shifts. The main concern for Asian American writers in the past—such as Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart: A Personal History (1943), Milton
Murayama’s All I Asking For Is My Body (1959), and Maxine Hong Kingston’s China
Men (1981)—was to claim America, to stress race and masculinity, and to delve into social history as well as communal responsibility. Nevertheless, for the younger generations—like Sara Suleri’s Meatless Days (1989), David Mura’s Turning
Japanese (1991), and Ginu Kamani’s Junglee Girl (1995)—the focus has changed to writing about diaspora and developing multiple interests in ethnicity, class, sex/ sexuality, postmodernism, poststructuralism, along with multiculturalism (Cheung 1-17). The younger generations of Asian American writers do not always, more specifically, stick to the subject of being Americans, yet attend more to the theme of their family roots, that is, the original ethnicity. In this regard, Korean American
3
As Ronald Takaki expounds in “From a Different Shore: Their History Bursts with Telling,” the roots of Asian Americans are so diverse and can be traced back to China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (4). However, I am of the opinion that Takaki omits some countries which also could be considered Asian, such as Thailand, Indonesia, or the countries in South Asia and the Middle East, like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, and so on. For further information, please consult Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (1998).
literature seems to follow the paradigm shift in Asian American literature, which also could be observed in Chang-rae Lee’s works. In the following discussion, I would like to elaborate on the variance and the significant characteristics in Korean American literature.
Korean American literature, according to Elaine H. Kim, is particularly rooted in and circumscribed by Korean American social history and sociopolitical
circumstances (“Korean American Literature” 157). Early Korean American authors illustrate Asian or Korean Americans as aliens because of their discernible ethnic features. Sometimes they write to claim America so as to express how wonderfully and successfully they have become westernized or Americanized. Most of the novels in this period are largely autobiographical and written by Korean immigrant
intellectuals. Aside from this, Japanese colonization of Korea also plays an important role in the development of Korean American literature, for it stimulates “the particular anguish of the exile deprived even of the sustaining illusion of a triumphant return ‘home’ after a life of toil in a country where she/ he felt hated” (“Korean American Literature” 158). In this phase, Younghill Kang (1903-72), a pioneering Korean American novelist, could be the best representative. The setting of his first novel, The
Grass Roof (1931), is in colonial Korea, and the protagonist, Chung-pa Han, is imprisoned briefly by the Japanese for his political participation in Sam Il Oondong.4 He dreams to flee from Korea to the US, never relinquishing his hope to find
acceptance in American life, only to fail in his American dream. Nevertheless, in Kang’s second novel, East Goes West (1937), Han and other Korean exiles finally arrive in America. Via these characters, Kang tries to “[call] into question U.S.
4
According to Elaine Kim’s footnote 7, “Sam Il Oondong was a series of massive peaceful
demonstrations protesting Japan’s colonization of Korea that began in Korea on March 19, 1919, and lasted for several months, during which thousands of Koreans were killed and imprisoned” (“Korean American” 183).
American nationalist narratives of progress, quality, assimilation, and upward mobility with his portrait of Korean immigrants’ endless wandering” (“Korean American Literature” 159).
Nevertheless, recent Korean American writers in Hawaii present a different facet in terms of Korean American identity and literature. As Elaine Kim states, Korean heritage for them is significant but not the only identity they possess. More concretely, it is possible for them to claim to be Asian, Korean, and American all at once, to be increasingly hybrid and heterogeneous (“Korean American Literature” 170-71). Take Gary Pak’s The Watcher of Waipuna (1992) for instance. It is a collection of short stories in which the characters belong to numerous races. Nevertheless, they are “not defined exclusively or even primarily by their ethnicity. . . . [Instead], their ethnicity describes them” (“Korean American Literature” 171), which appears to resonate with the change of Asian American literature mentioned earlier, that is, multiculturalism, heterogeneity, and peculiarity. Nowadays, the trend of Korean American literature, as Elaine Kim analyzes in “Roots and Wings,” is no longer mainly about the connection between Korea and Korean Americans. The key elements for younger Korean
American writers are “US imperialism in Korean history, racism in immigrant life, and issues of gender and sexuality in family and society. At the same time, there should be more focus on different ways of being Korean in America” (“Roots and Wings” 15).
Furthermore, in terms of the perspective on gender and sexuality, “[m]ale writers who have dominated Korean-American literature up to the late seventies have rarely attempted to create multi-dimensional female characters in their works” (Kyhan Lee 26). More specifically, they are male-centered and accustomed to accepting or
to change the unfair situation, more and more female writers, such as Sook Nyul Choi, write for Korean and Korean American women so that they can really know and remember Korea with its war history. In Chang-rae Lee’s novels, we can observe the features of early and recent Korean American literature. Meanwhile, we can also see that female characters are important in his novels.
Chang-rae Lee, viewed as the most prominent contemporary Korean American writer by Heinz Insu Fenkl in 2004 (20), could be thought of as the best representative for the transition of Korean American literature I mentioned above. The settings of his books are still surrounded by war, Korean American history, and sociopolitical
circumstances. However, his novels also address the issues of racism in the
community or society and of sex/ sexuality in family, which are two points mentioned by Elaine Kim as characteristics of works by younger Korean American novelists. Aside from these, he blends the Hawaiian writer’s thinking toward being Korean or Asian in the US within the story, namely, to claim to be Asian, Korean, and American at the same time. Most important of all, Lee tries to tell readers that one’s selfhood is significant for one’s life: we should be the masters of our life instead of being
controlled by it.
Among his first three novels, all written in first-person narration, I have chosen
Native Speaker and A Gesture Life as my primary texts for analysis because of the numerous analogies between them.5 The heroes—Henry Park in Native Speaker as well as Franklin Hata in A Gesture Life—are Asian American outsiders who
eventually acquire similar insight into identity. Both of them would like to start a family in America, and long for a successful fulfillment of their American dreams. Nonetheless, their American life appears not to go so smoothly. Henry hopes and
5
His latest book, The Surrendered, has been just published so I will not take it into consideration in this thesis.
strives to be a well-assimilated American, but gets confused gradually when working as a spy. Hata also dreams to be thought of as an American, but everyone still calls him Hata instead of Franklin owing to his apparent “Japaneseness.” They both
experience a journey of searching for selfhood, nationality and ethnicity, along with a sense of belonging. Most significantly, the female characters in the novels—Lelia, Sunny, and Kkutaeh—are not just suffering women or the disadvantaged but are set as decisive turning points for Henry’s and Hata’s life journeys. Nevertheless, as we can know from the endings of the stories, both Henry and Hata step on a more distinct road in life than before. Henry eventually reunites and lives with his wife again, whereas Hata leaves his daughter, grandson, and the familiar American town in the long run. Moreover, in the two novels, Lee successfully combines the conventions and the innovation of Korean American literature. In Native Speaker, Korean American social history is subtly written into the storyline, while the memories of World War II and the Korean comfort women are finely inserted into A Gesture Life. On top of history and war, Lee pays much attention to the multidimensional and heterogeneous society in both books. He expresses concern about racism, marriage, and transnational adoption. Meanwhile, he also takes advantage of multiculturalism, and arranges various characters with different ethnic backgrounds to strengthen his belief in unmatched racial peculiarity.
Unlike Native Speaker and A Gesture Life, in Aloft, Lee explores identity issues based upon an insider’s perspective. The protagonist in his third novel is Jerry Battle, an Italian American whose family is a diluted mix of Italian Asian and Latin American. According to Philip Culbertson’s review of Aloft, Lee writes brilliantly “about identity and relationships, about the every-dayness of our regular lives, and about the fears and anxieties that characterise our inner dialogue.” Through interacting with his grown children, late wife, and girlfriend, Jerry comes to an understanding of himself better.
However, Lee mainly focuses on interpersonal relationships, family identity, and human nature that are different from what interests me in the other two books, namely, national and racial identity. Hence, I choose to analyze Native Speaker and A Gesture
Life in this thesis. Furthermore, in addition to the traits of Koran American literature, his novels are highly concerned with the form of the Bildungsroman. With the genre, he successfully narrates the dilemma of the Asian American in between two different cultures. In the following section, I will dwell on the literature review with reference to the two novels.
1.3 Literature Review
So far numerous scholars have studied the issue of identity in the two books based on distinct perspectives. In terms of Native Speaker, the issue of identity has been discussed from the perspectives of history, politics, ethnicity, and invisibility. For instance, in “A Diasporic Future? Native Speaker and Historical Trauma,” Min
Hyoung Song takes advantage of shared historical trauma to define the location of Korean American identity. Through the analysis of John Kwang and Henry Park, Song considers that the present-day Korean American is indeed a group different from Koreans or Americans, but is ultimately burdened by the Korean, as well as Korean American, history. In “Citizen Kwang: Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker and the Politics of Consent,” Betsy Huang argues that the absence of Asian Americans in American political systems highlights the fact that the Asian American is a disadvantaged minority. Out of the failure of Kwang’s mayoral campaign, Huang thinks that it is still hard to imagine a solution to stable identity between Asian and American (264). In “Ethnicity as Cognitive Identity,” Sämi Ludwig’s main concern is that body identity, or biological determinism, must be acknowledged, but cannot satisfactorily explain “a person’s experiencing ‘identity’” (222). As a result, Ludwig
tries to explicate identity from another viewpoint on the basis of cognitive psychology. In “Impersonation and Other Disappearing Acts in Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee,” Tina Chen mentions that “[Henry’s] invisibility is both a matter of the refusal of others to see him and the logical effect of his [spy] occupation” (638). At the same time, the spy task also symbolizes “his cultural dilemmas as a Korean American” (Chen 661). Hence, by means of Henry’s invisibility and his job, Chen further delves into his query of identity. Moreover, most of the researches on this novel focus only on Henry and Kwang. Nevertheless, in my thesis I will probe into Henry’s oscillatory identity not only through the eyes of Kwang, but also through the eyes of Henry’s father and wife. Meanwhile, I will discuss Henry’s attitude toward linguistic identity, concentrating on how he bridges Korea and America.
Researches on A Gesture Life are comparatively fewer than those on Native
Speaker. In “Passing, Natural Selection, and Love’s Failure: Ethics of Survival from Chang-rae Lee to Jacques Lacan,” Anne Anlin Cheng attempts “to nuance the politics of vision in the context of social assimilation and to explore the problem of
objecthood for theories of subjectivity” (557). In “Gender, Race, and the Nation in A
Gesture Life,” Young-oak Lee strives to explore “the layers of Hata’s ideologies that seem to have interfered with his ultimate goal of attaining an American national identity” (147). In “Traumatic Patriarchy: Reading Gendered Nationalisms in Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life,” Hamilton Carroll pays more attention to the topics of sex/ sexuality, trauma, along with assimilation. He argues that there is “a shift in perspective from a nationally oriented, patriarchally centered, narrative of
immigration and cultural assimilation to a fragmented, transnational narrative driven by the stories of Kkutaeh and Sunny” (593). Similarly, in my thesis I will delve into Hata’s racial and national identity through the perspectives of assimilation and trauma. Furthermore, Carroll holds that “A Gesture Life cannot be understood as a
Bildungsroman proper because . . . the novel becomes a traumatic narrative that consistently displaces Hata’s tale of successful assimilation” (593). However, I hold a different stance from Carroll’s. Even though the novel involves Hata’s traumatic experience, it still cannot cover the truth of his assimilation. More specifically, his trauma and successful assimilation are interwoven with each other. For example, due to being abandoned by his Korean birth parents, Hata makes up his mind to
thoroughly melt into the Japanese society, being docile and obedient to the wishes of his Japanese adoptive parents. Through his narration, he reveals the relationships between his traumas and his will to assimilation, while gradually realizing that successful assimilation still cannot erase his racial uniqueness, which could be considered a process of Bildung. Likewise, in Native Speaker, Henry experiences a chaotic identity crisis, eventually comprehending that people cannot get rid of their original ethnicity but have to accept it instead, which could be viewed as a process of his Bildung. With the two narratives of Bildung, both Henry and Hata change the whole view of racial and national identity. Thus, I would like to read the two novels as examples of Asian American Bildungsroman and further probe into the insights that Henry and Hata get.
1.4 The Bildungsroman and Chang-rae Lee
The Bildungsroman allegedly first appeared in 1795 with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship) (Feng 2; Hardin ix). According to the definition in Oxford English Dictionary, a
Bildungsroman is “[a] novel that has as its main theme the formative years or spiritual education of one person.” Aside from this, in the introduction to Reflection and Action:
Essays on the Bildungsroman (1991), James Hardin also roughly defines the
distinguishable from that nonfictional form), and principally concerned with the spiritual and psychological development of the protagonist” (ix). Nevertheless, Jeffery L. Sammons criticizes that such an elucidation of the Bildungsroman seems too broad and sketchy (26). In fact, Hardin himself, after the general definition of the word, also points out that “there is no consensus on the meaning of the term Bildungsroman” (x). As a result, in addition to the above definitions, I will try to delve into the relationship between the Bildungsroman and Chang-rae Lee’s fiction based on the narrative
pattern, the plot, and the denouement. Via the genre, Lee successfully depicts the ambivalence of the Asian Americans about their identity oscillating between “ethnicity” and “nation.” During their Bildungs, however, the main characters gradually change their attitude toward identity. Actually, they do not need to give up their racial identity in order to own national identity. Instead, they can have both, which is the main message that Lee wants to convey to the Asian American and those who are bothered by the same situation.
In terms of the narrative pattern of the Bildungsroman, according to Pin-chia Feng’s analysis of Wilhelm Dilthey, two essential elements are a linear progression toward knowledge and social integration as well as a “spiral”6 upward movement toward spiritual fulfillment (2). However, Lee, in both of the novels, creates a dual spiral depiction not only in spiritual achievement but in the chronological progression as well through inter-weaving the past and the present. On the basis of Elaine Kim’s “Roots and Wings,” the amalgamation of the past and the present is crucial, for it could be thought of as a significant linchpin to realize the present (2). In Native
Speaker, Henry always recalls past memories in his daily and working life. For instance, he remembers his childhood in which he lived with his parents. He thinks
6
Feng indicates that the spiral concept comes from Mary Anne Ferguson’s “The Female Novel of Development and the Myth of Psyche.”
that his father was too stubborn and cowardly to fight for his own right. Thus, even though a customer took a small bite of an apple and did not buy it, he just smiled as if nothing had happened. However, it is not until Henry grows up that he understands it is the way his father chooses to protect his family and their life from bullies. Through his narration, it can be sensed he feels sorry for his father and acknowledge that his thinking was immature then. More importantly, by means of his father, he understands the grief of being a Korean immigrant, which is why he strives to integrate into the white society. In A Gesture Life, Hata always retrieves the past whenever he sees any reminders or people reminiscent of his past recollections. For example, the pictures in a dusty box in the storeroom remind him of his adopted daughter Sunny and her childhood. In the meanwhile, the slightness of her build reminds him of Kkutaeh, the comfort woman in wartime. Through Sunny’s photographs and slender figure, Hata recalls the past, eventually comprehending that he views Sunny as a substitute for Kkutaeh. Accordingly, with Lee’s dual spiral of narrating progression and upward spiritual accomplishment, the two novels indeed have a unique pattern for the protagonists’ Bildungs.
As for the plot, “most Bildungsroman novels adopt the majority of the genre’s principal elements: childhood, the conflict of the generations, provinciality, the larger society, self-education, alienation, and ordeal by love. Also, the child will normally be an orphan or fatherless or repelled by a living father” (Selinger 38-39).7 In Lee’s fiction, most of these conventional points can be found as well. In Native Speaker, Henry as the narrator talks about what has happened from his childhood to adulthood. After graduating from a university, he becomes a provincial spy, caring nothing but his family. Generally speaking, a spy needs to always stay calm and maintains
7
Selinger paraphrases Jerome Hamilton Buckley’s remarks in his Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman
multiple identities so that s/he can carry out a task with precision. Because of these traits, he is forced to face alienation in a society filled with racism against nonwhites. Moreover, As Bernard Selinger observes, “the secondary characters principally act as models for the protagonist, models which he can accept or reject. This modeling is central to the development of the Bildung, who attains individuality by, paradoxically, becoming like someone else” (50). Henry is asked to spy on John Kwang, a Korean American candidate for the mayor of New York. However, due to Kwang’s excellent performance in all respects, Henry thinks of him as a perfectly-assimilated American and a role model. Thus, with Lelia’s ordeal by love and John Kwang as a model, Henry realizes and re-conceptualizes ethnic and national identity. In A Gesture Life, Hata reveals what happened mainly in and after his youth. From his narration, we can know he is a Korean adoptee endeavoring to make others recognize him as an
American. As a result, he becomes a model minority both in Japan and in America. Much to his amazement, though, his desire to be a model minority gives rise to the conflict with Sunny. Nevertheless, he also gets a different insight into ethnic and national identity via Kkutaeh’s ordeal and a yearning for Sunny. Hence, the plots of the two novels correspond to the conventions of the Bildungsroman.
Furthermore, the change of the perspectives on ethnic and national identity that Hata and Henry experience could be regarded as the outcome of their processes of
Bildung respectively. According to the early nineteenth-century critic Karl
Morgenstern, “a work will be called a Bildungsroman first and primarily on account of its content, because it depicts the hero’s Bildung as it begins and proceeds to a certain level of perfection” (Berman 77).8 As a result, the protagonist’s Bildung is a key component for a work as a Bildungsroman.
8
Karl Morgenstern’s remarks in this section are cited by Russell A. Berman from Hildegard Emmel’s
In the eighteenth century, Bildung meant formation, “transferring the formation of external features to the features of the personality as a whole” (Koepke 130). Later, in the early nineteenth century, the term implied “‘cultivation,’ education and
refinement in a broad, humanistic sense” (Hardin xi). To put it another way, Bildung has two important connotations, namely, “cultivation” and “formation.” As Sammons mentions, “the Bildungsroman should have something to do with Bildung, that is, with the early bourgeois, humanistic concept of the shaping of the individual self from its innate potentialities through acculturation and social experience to the threshold of maturity” (41). For the concept of Bildung, Sammons further points out that “[it] is intensely bourgeois; it carries with it many assumptions about the autonomy and relative integrity of the self, its potential self-creative energies, its relative range of options within material, social, even psychological determinants” (42). Thus, Bildung could be defined as a process for the formation of one’s self from immaturity to maturity via self-education. And, the process of Bildung highly affects and relates to the development and the outcome of one’s selfhood and identity.
When it comes to the concept of Bildung in fiction, it is applied to the main character who undergoes a series of discouragements and encouragements, finally getting a more positive attitude toward self and the world (Hardin xii-xiii).9 In this regard, however, Sammons hold a different viewpoint. He argues,
Bildung is not merely the accumulation of experience, not merely maturation in the form of fictional biography. There must be a sense of evolutionary change within the self, a teleology of individuality, even if the novel, as many do, comes to doubt or deny the possibility of achieving a gratifying result. (41)
9
For further information, please consult Der deutsche Bildungsroman: Gattungsgeschichte vom 18. bis
In other words, for a Bildungsroman, “[i]t does not much matter whether the process of Bildung succeeds or fails, whether the protagonist achieves an accommodation with life and society or not” (Sammons 41). Instead, it is more important for the hero to gain a sense of evolutionary or revolutionary change in thought during the process of
Bildung, even though s/he does not get a more positive understanding of self and the world.
At the end of Native Speaker, Henry finally gets together with his wife again, trying to be himself more positively. On the contrary, in the ending of A Gesture Life, Hata departs from everything familiar to him, traveling alone without specific
destinations. Even so, both of them—as outsiders of white culture—get to understand themselves and change their attitude toward racial and national identity. For Henry, he becomes more enthusiastic about people instead of being indifferent. For Hata, he does not insist on being a model minority anymore. They eventually realize that it is more important to be what they are rather than being what others hope them to be. In addition, they comprehend that assimilation, just like hallucination, can never
camouflage the fact that they are nonwhites. They should not evade their original ethnicity, but try to face and identify with it instead. On the other hand, it is also a fact that they are Americans now. Even though Henry still cannot solve his identity
problem in the long run, he is not trapped within it. This is because he has realized that it is more significant to be who and what he is. As for the query of identity, Chang-rae Lee tries to solve it in A Gesture Life. The final insight that Hata has achieved is to come to a reconciliation among the identities of Korea, Japan, and America.
Based on the above analyses, we can reach three key points in regard to the connection of the Bildungsroman and Lee’s novels. First, Chang-rae Lee not only employs the conventional elements of the Bildungsroman in his novels, but also
makes a breakthrough in the traditional discursive development in the genre. Second, by writing these narratives of Bildung, he ultimately comes up with his answer to the problem of the identity crisis at the ends of both novels. Third, through deploying the elements of the Bildungsroman, Lee successfully creates a typology of the genre “based on the protagonist’s participation in the social mainstream or his identity as an outsider” (Hirsch 297). For such a typology, Marianne Hirsch stresses that in recent times, “[the] manifestations of the genre seem to explore primarily the fate of outsiders, [such as] women, minority groups, [and] artists (i.e., spiritual outsiders)” (297). In this regard, Henry and Hata are such outsiders. In addition, Morgenstern further points out that “[the genre of the Bildungsroman] promotes the Bildung of the reader to a greater extent than any other type of novel” (Berman 77). Through these
Bildungsromans, Chang-rae Lee not only conveys his viewpoints toward the oscillating identity of the Asian American, but urges the reader like me to (re)think about it as well. Therefore, I would like to conclude with my Bildung and argue that “A Part” or “Apart” is only a matter of option at the end of the thesis. In the following two chapters, I will discuss Henry’s and Hata’s narratives of Bildung respectively. In
Native Speaker, I will focus on the idea of linguistic identity and how Henry bridges the worlds and the cultures of Korea and America. Similarly, in A Gesture Life, I will concentrate on the relationships between Hata’s traumas and the ideology of model minority, and further analyze how they are interwoven with each other, which could be considered constituting the process of his Bildung. Finally, through reading the
Bildungs of Henry and Hata, I would try to delve into the different lifestyle between the first and second Korean-American generations. After this, I would like to explore Lee’s understanding as well as thinking toward ethnic and national identity, and further scrutinize his reply to the identity crisis in the last chapter. Meanwhile, I will scrutinize my Bildung after reading and writing about the two novels as well. With the
thesis, I hope to offer another exit, another solution for those who are troubled by two or more identities.
Chapter 2
Who Am I? : A Spy’s Identification in Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker
You are surreptitious, B+ student of life, first thing hummer of Wagner and Strauss, illegal alien, emotional alien, genre bug, Yellow peril:
neo-American, great in bed, overrated, poppa’s boy, sentimentalist,
anti-romantic, ______ analyst (you fill in), stranger, follower, traitor, [and] spy.
Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker It is significant to know exactly who one is. Yet, Henry Park seems to omit or neglect this because of his desire to be assimilated into the white society. Lelia Boswell, Henry’s wife, leaves him with the list above, which triggers a process of self-inquiry for Henry. Through his Bildung, Henry grasps the significance to be what he is.
According to Sämi Ludwig, “this is a false identity that he [Henry] has assumed for himself; she [Lelia] has taken the initiative to provoke him by showing him this mirror of himself” (224). On top of the very above identities, Lelia adds one
more—a“[f]alse speaker of language” (Native Speaker 6). Language epitomizes the culture and acculturation of a nation, especially in terms of the usage of slangs and idioms. For immigrants, it is hard to internalize these linguistic practices, especially for those who have never touched the language before. Yet, it is essential for them to learn to be fluent in a new tongue in order to survive and adopt well in the new environment. Even Henry, an American-born Korean, also undergoes a bitter process of learning English because its pronunciation is markedly different from that of Korean. Nevertheless, through Lelia, Henry realizes and sees more because “[she] acts as a window for Henry to reflect on the lives of struggling immigrant laborers and
their children” (Yoo 58). She is a speech therapist for children, helping those who have problems speaking English, including ESL kids. Among her students, two Laotian boys and their fathers catch Henry’s eyes. While listening to the fathers and sons communicating with customers in broken English, Henry “knows all too well that the boys will soon break their association with their native language in hopes of adopting and assimilating the new language” (Yoo 58). Nonetheless, Jane Yoo also comments that compared with those second-generation children, their parents are more reluctant to acquire the new language and embrace the new culture; instead, they are more willing to stick to their native roots (58). It could be the reason why the old Korean au pair in Henry’s home is not so friendly to Lelia. All in all, throughout the novel, the power of language is the key to “shape success, failure, acceptance, [and] rejection” (Belluck, “Being of Two Cultures”). That is, for immigrants, and even the American-born Henry, English is a requisite to live well in America.
In addition, the spy job for Henry is critical to his awakening. Pam Belluck in a
New York Times interview delineates Henry as a spook “for shadowy, private clients, whose duty to blend into various roles forces him to suppress vital parts of himself.” On account of the employment, he always needs to change identities, like a master of disguise, a chameleon, in order to protect himself. Nevertheless, not until shadowing John Kwang—a Korean American candidate for New York’s mayoral position—does Henry waver and begin to question his life and himself. Kwang actually becomes a special person. According to John Whittier Treat, Kwang for Henry is a role model who “can admire as well as battle, because Kwang is to all appearances a perfectly assimilated Korean American” (339). Henry also longs to be a well-assimilated American, just as his father wishes him to be. He struggles to learn English well, enters a good university, and marries a white woman and has a lovely
until the demise of his son. The son’s passing away, according to what Lee explains in his interview with Belluck, stands for the end of “a way of thinking about the future,” compelling Henry into a messy life. Nevertheless, after knowing Kwang, his
humanity seems to awake gradually. At the same time, he holds a different view concerning identity.
In this chapter, I will dwell on Henry’s query of identity problem and the process of his Bildung. As Tina Chen points out,
Henry experiences as a Korean American whose American birth does not preclude his grappling with linguistic fluency and a cultural legacy of silence; as a man who woos his speech therapist wife without truly
fathoming the mysteries of how to make himself heard and understood; and as a spy whose professional success is predicated upon his ability to
impersonate someone else, to speak a story not his own. (639)
Sandwiched between Korean and American cultures, Henry struggles to be identified as a native, only at the expense of his self. His problem lies in the loss of selfhood. Accordingly, in the latter part of the chapter, my concern will focus on the influence of linguistic identity to Henry and how he goes through a process of development from his spy assignment and encounter with Kwang.
2.1 Enchantment of Language
Members of small minorities are more likely to acquire the culture and language of the majority than members of large minorities. . . The
incentives are greater for any individual to learn the majority language when only a few persons in the country speak his or her native language. (113-24)
Edward P. Lazear, “Culture and Language” I didn’t know what a difference in language meant then. Or how my tongue
would tie in the initial attempts, stiffen so, struggle like an animal booby-trapped and dying inside my head. Native speakers may not fully know this, but English is a scabrous mouthful. (233)
Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker For minority immigrants in America like the Parks, it is far better to “be
assimilated in order to survive in the society” (Lazear 99). For the purpose of being well-assimilated, English becomes a crucial means of survival and communication. In
Native Speaker, Henry’s father cannot serve as an industrial engineer in the US due to his limited English competence, even though he graduates from the best university in Korea. Moreover, via the successful fruit business, he also realizes that “[t]rade between individuals is facilitated when all traders share a common culture and
language” (Lazear 97). He even asks Henry to recite the “Shakespeare words” so as to show off his well-assimilated and well-educated child to his friends and other natives, as he considers the performance is “good for business” (Native Speaker 53). This is because they can be accepted more easily through a show of assimilation, which also implies they can be part of the American melting pot. In spite of his diligence and successful business, nevertheless, Henry’s father is still not recognized as “‘authentic’ American political agent,” but just as “a legal alien” in America, for his poor
“language abilities cast him as a failed national subject within the territory of the US” (Narkunas 336). Similarly, Henry’s mother does not speak English well, and can only communicate with other Koreans, which makes her life a small and narrow circle. Through the examples of his parents, Henry learns the significance of English if he wants to survive in the US.
What is more, the sense of invisibility reinforces his sensibility toward the language as well. Daniel Y. Kim indicates that “[Native Speaker] attempts to cast light on the psychic costs of the invisibility imposed on a minority community by white
Americans and of the invisibility that prevents those within a minority community from recognizing each other” (232). Due to his minority identity, Henry himself has discerned a sense of invisibility among the whites since his childhood. “[I]f I just kept speaking the language [Korean] of our work,” as he narrates, “the customers did not seem to see me. I wasn’t there. They didn’t look at me. I was a comely shadow who didn’t threaten them” (Native Speaker 53). Aside from this, Henry is ridiculed as “Marble Mouth” (Native Speaker 234) for his inarticulate predicament in kindergarten owing to his minority identity again. With the triple influence—his parents’ lived experiences and the internal fears of being neglected as well as of making linguistic errors—Henry pays much more attention to his own pronunciation, for just like what he says: “I will always make bad errors of speech” (Native Speaker 234).
In addition to his speech, Henry becomes very sensitive to other people’s pronunciation, which can be sensed from his first encounter with Lelia. As he recounts,
I noticed how closely I was listening to her. What I found was this: that she could really speak. At first I took her as being executing the language. She went word by word. Every letter had a border. I watched her wide full mouth sweep through her sentences like a figure touring a dark house, flipping on spots and banks of perfectly drawn light. (Native Speaker 10-11) Besides his wife, he also notices that John Kwang speaks “beautiful, almost formal English” (Native Speaker 23). He is not only attracted by those who can speak English perfectly but envies them as well, for he is “always thinking about still having an accent” (Native Speaker 12). Lelia, as a speech therapist, also observes the fact that Henry cares too much about his words. Judging from his speech, she says, “[y]ou look like someone listening to himself. You pay attention to what you’re doing. If I had to guess, you’re not a native speaker. . . You’re very careful” (Native Speaker 12).
Nevertheless, Ludwig has reminded us that “language is a key; it tells you more about a person than the person’s face or ‘ethnicity’ in the sense of origin” (234). Henry seems to be firmly convinced that if he cannot have a good command of English, he will be regarded as a non-native speaker because language tells a lot unconsciously. For him, speaking English perfectly stands for the affirmation of his American identity. Therefore, well though John Kwang speaks English, Henry still feels something
wrong with his “errant tone, the flag, the minor mistake that would tell of his original race” (Native Speaker 179). Furthermore, as far as phonology is concerned, Henry’s Korean accent is much worse than Eduardo Fermin’s.10 Actually, Henry even “could not read the Korean well” (Native Speaker 345). He lays far more stress on English than on Korean even though he is of Korean descent. This is because he hopes to strengthen his American-born identity via acquisition of fluent English. In this way, he expects to avoid facing the state of invisibility due to his ethnic origin. However, as Daniel Kim criticizes, “Henry’s utter linguistic alienation from an immigrant
vernacular that nonetheless draws out of him a sense of desire, loss, and guilt” (252). His linguistic identity manifests his desire to be a well-assimilated American, only at the cost of his Koreanness. Overemphasizing pronunciation and articulation
paradoxically makes Henry’s foreign blood more prominent, which directly leads to his identity crisis. In addition, as J. Paul Narkunas indicates, language abilities and cultural history also turn into the cause of Henry’s inauthenticity (333). Due to the spy job, he temporarily gets out of the identity crisis caused by his Koreanness and
linguistic problems. This is because the sense of inauthenticity toward his identity cloaks who and what he is. However, it as well pushes him into a state of uncertainty for his identity during the execution of the assignments.
10
2.2 A Good Performer in His Life?
Just stay in the background. Be unapparent and flat. Speak enough so they can hear your voice and come to trust it, but no more, and no one will think twice about who you are. The key is to make them think just once. (44)
Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker Henry met Dennis Hoagland outside the career services office by chance.
Hoagland is the head of Glimmer and Company, a firm that shadows and investigates people. The company indeed provides Henry a good excuse to live with inauthentic identity. As Tina Chen comments, “Henry’s spying is a metaphor for his uneasy position as a Korean American trying to figure out his place in American society” (638). Regardless of his American birth, Henry still hopes to make himself more American via assimilation, yet he is constantly bewildered by his Korean ethnicity, which leads to a sense of disorientation for his identity. Hoagland and his company miraculously appear on the horizon to relieve his inner hesitation and anxiety. As Henry narrates, “the firm had conveniently appeared at the right time, offering the perfect vocation for the person I was . . . I found a sanction from our work, for I thought I had finally found my truest place in the future” (Native Speaker 127). He feels destined to go into the spy business, for “he considers his marginal position in American culture as one that easily translates into the spy’s marginalized status as ‘the secret observer.’” (Chen 645). By means of the spook task, he can not only take advantage of his outsider status as a Korean American but also evade his identity problem for the time being. This is because the job trains him how to play multiple roles and, more importantly, how to neglect “how others perceive him and how he sees himself,” just through the effect of theatrical realism (Chen 638).
In her article, Chen points out the result of the potential situation of realism employed in any performances. She states,
In theatrical performance, realism has been decried as a dangerous practice, primarily because of its potential to interpellate an audience into a passive subject position. The potential of realism to imprison a spectator’s
imagination stems both from the vision of authenticity and authority that it presents to an audience as well as from the methods of representation it employs. Thus, critics have identified the dramatic conventions associated with realism as ones that subtly compel the spectator to occupy a viewing position that implicitly accepts the ‘truth’ of that which is presented. (651-52).
Henry’s work in the company is to primarily investigate those who are ethnic Americans like him, focusing on Koreans and other Asians. Owing to the fact of his yellow appearance and minority identity, the people whom he investigates will easily believe in the roles he enacts, just like what he narrates—“I had always thought that I could be anyone, perhaps several anyones at once” (Native Speaker 127). However, the false truth he creates not only “command[s] the belief of his witnesses, witting[ly] and unwitting[ly], [but] also manages to lose himself in his roles” (Chen 652). Here “lose himself in his roles” is a pun. In order to have his assignment favorable and successful, Henry does nothing but well convince others of his impersonation, that is, he can melt into the life of each and every one character that he has created. What is more, living with a fake identity and a different name makes him ignore how others think about his Asian blood, which is mentioned by Tina Chen. She argues that “Henry’s position as a minority subject compels his awareness of the ways in which his professional voyeurism shadows how he himself is observed and defined” (646). In the meantime, living with an imaginary identity also gets him to overlook the query of his identity. Namely, he melts into his own identity, truly losing himself in the created roles. “[A] good spook,” according to his explanation, “has no brothers, no
sisters, no father or mother. He’s intentionally lost that huge baggage, those
encumbering remnants of blood and flesh, and because of this he carries no memory of a house, no memory of a land, he seems to have emerged from nowhere” (Native
Speaker 173). Out of these words, he implicitly explicates that his Korean descent seems to be an oppressive burden. It is only through the spy work that he can forget what he is and that he is liberated from the ambivalence of his “Korean” or
“American” identity.
After getting married to Lelia, he still keeps the job, and continues with his inauthentic life. Due to this marriage, nevertheless, he appears to integrate into the white mainstream more. Won Yong-Jin has mentioned that “[t]he increasing number of intermarriages between white Americans and Asian-Americans is applauded as an ultimate marker of whiteness” (59). When telling his father with regard to their marriage, Henry is so astonished by his father’s calm approval. This is because he always thinks that Henry should find a mate of their own race (Native Speaker 58). Yet, his father changes his mind after he has encountered the language barriers, the bullies at his store, along with other acts of discrimination from other whites. He learns that it is better for their life to have relationship to a white society. This is because having a connection with whites symbolizes that they are indeed accepted by and melt into this white society. As a result, he is used to telling his friends proudly in English that Lelia is his daughter. And he likes to show her around at the store because she is white (Native Speaker 57-58). As far as their marriage is concerned, Henry’s father even reads it as a tactic for his smooth future life, which can be sensed from Henry’s narration—“I think he had come to view our union logically, practically, and perhaps he thought he saw through my intentions, the assumption being that Lelia and her family would help me make my way in the land” (Native Speaker 58). However, for Henry, the marriage seems to be a union simply for love, a connection between
two different races. The product of their love, Mitt, can be thought of as a bridge of the two nations, Korea and the US. Based on Ludwig’s interpretation, “[Mitt is] the living being who overcame ethnic, racial, cultural, and language barriers, the perfect synthesis that couldn’t be” (237). Aside from this, he can be considered a link between the older and the newer generations as well. Mitt gets along well with his grandfather. His grandfather also takes advantage of the chance to pass down Korean traditions so that he can know something about his father’s land.11 This would be viewed as a sort of acculturation to make sure that within American education some Korean traditions can be still kept in Mitt’s mind. However, the bridge topples after the demise of Mitt. At the same time, the bereavement causes Henry’s alienation as well (Ludwig 236). Mitt’s passing away seems to make Henry lose the future aim he needs to struggle for. After Mitt’s death, he still pays attention to his spy task and lives with false identity, without letting Lelia know what he does. His wife also feels
something wrong with his job, but he does not want to reveal anything to her at all. Thus, she cannot endure anymore and chooses to leave him. “Lelia’s departure,” as Ludwig comments, “triggers a certain instability in Henry Park’s professional performance” (226). That is, Lelia can be comprehended as a significant factor for Henry’s Bildung. In addition to Lelia, Emile Luzan and John Kwang are also critical to the development of Henry’s awakening, which further pushes Henry to wonder if he should quit the spy job.
2.3 The Emile Luzan and John Kwang Assignments
After Lelia leaves, Henry is assigned to spy Emile Luzan, a psychoanalyst. In this assignment, he plays a successful mortgage broker with emotional and
11
Henry delineates that how much Mitt cherishes a silver coin because of the Bronze Age Korean mythology told by Mitt’s grandfather (Native Speaker 102).
psychological problems. In the beginning, he still plays the role very well, yet later he has “nearly blown cover” (Native Speaker 21). Owing to Lelia’s departure and the list she leaves, however, he starts getting more depressed and confused about his identity and who he is. Accordingly, when meeting Dr. Luzan, he cannot avoid releasing his perplexed mind. As he delineates, “for the first time I found myself at moments running short of my story, my chosen narrative. . . I began stringing the legend back upon myself. . . . I was becoming dangerously frank, . . . and in moments I felt he was the only one in the world who might comfort me” (Native Speaker 22). Under Dr. Luzan’s guidance, he gradually draws his real life into the fictitious world. For Henry, Luzan is not only a client but his friend and counselor as well. Additionally, during the sessions, he appears to stray away from his spook task, completely losing himself. Hoagland even sends in Jack Kalantzakos, another spy, to “retrieve [his] remains, [his] exposed bones” (Native Speaker 23).
Based on Ludwig’s reading, “[t]he emphasis on himself as a set of body parts implies that Henry is mentally dead, some kind of zombie” (227). Because of the very family crisis and bewilderment toward his identity, he easily shows a slip in front of Luzan, “the good doctor,” and turns into a zombie-like man without a soul (Native
Speaker 134). Henry calls Luzan “good doctor” not only because of his kind treatment and friendship but also because of the fact that Luzan breaks the camouflage of a spy, inducing himself to expose his true self and problems under the multiple roles. As Luzan tells him, “perhaps only a small part of your difficulties is attributable to biochemical issues, if at all. I don’t think medication is in order . . . Certainly like all of us you have traditional issues to deal with. Parentage, intimacy, trust” (Native
Speaker 133). Luzan learns that Henry’s problems cannot be controlled and cured by medicine because they are psychological obstacles. In the light of his realization toward Henry, his problems lie in parentage, intimacy, and trust. Parentage here can
be understood as his Korean origin that Henry would like to discard. Intimacy signifies his longing for the marital relationship with Lelia again. He hopes to solve the family crisis with regard to the departure of Lelia, and restarts their life. Besides, trust here can be realized as the fact that Henry can be accepted and treated like a local American. He hopes that he would not be discriminated against due to his Korean descent. After several sessions, Henry begins to hesitate whether it is correct to reveal Luzan’s information to Hoagland. Eventually, he even wants to warn the good doctor to watch out for everything beside him at the end of the mission, which, unfortunately, is in vain. After this failed mission, he cannot stick to this job very well. “It is in this encounter that for the first time he starts seriously questioning his
professional occupation” (Ludwig 227).
In the following assignment of shadowing John Kwang, Henry further gives up his professional trick, and gradually discovers who and what he is, with the help of Lelia. When first meeting Kwang in person, Henry is so impressed by his geniality and attractiveness to the public. Looking at Kwang, Henry cannot help but associate him with his late father from the appearance, the mode of behavior, and even the difference between them. Both of them are always clean-shaven, paying attention to their appearance in front of people. Kwang wants to show his confidence in public, and Henry’s father also wants to show his to the customers, neighbors, and friends. Moreover, both of them, even Henry, always choose to solve the problem with silence. Near the end of the novel, Kwang’s office is bombed and burned down. Three people are dead because of the bombing, including his close friend Eduardo. The bombing probably arises from a political intrigue. For the purpose of evading from the press, Kwang and his partners move to his house, figuring out the solution to face the difficulty together. For the sake of safety, he temporarily sends his family to his other house without televisions and radios, for “[t]hey don’t need to see their father like
