Image Study

Many images appear throughout the novel. These images include the father figure, family as a whole, and racial/nationality differences (Korean Americans).

One of the most important images in the novel so far is the father figure. Henry Park grew up with mixed emotions for his father. Henry saw his father as someone who worked hard to make money, but sometimes seemed like his father was happier when they weren’t as wealthy, and they lived everyday to the fullest.


(Second picture was changed on December 7, 2009 7:02 p.m. due to technical difficulties)

“I wonder if my father, if given the chance, would have wished to go back to the time before he made all that money, when he had just one store and we rented a tiny apartment in Queens. He worked hard and had worries but he had a joy then that he never seemed to regain once the money started coming in.” (51-52)

Also, when Henry was just a boy, he always thought his father had a cold heart and showed no emotion. “For most of my youth I wasn’t sure that he had the capacity to love…I never witnessed from him a devotion I could call love” (58). This might also relate to when Lelia called him an “anti-romantic” because just like his father, maybe Henry did not show a “devotion” to love either. Like father, like son. Now as Henry reminisces, I think he realizes that his father is just someone who held all his emotions inside in order to not worry the child. He remembers “the image of my father standing there in the hall when I came back out, his hands clasped at his groin in a military post, his neck taut and thick, working, trying hard to swallow the nothing balling up in his throat...I wondered, too, whether he was suffering inside, whether he sometimes cried, as I did, for reasons unknown” (59). No matter how different the father was from the son, maybe they were similar to each other in unique ways such as how they express their feelings.

Another important image in the novel is the idea of family as a whole. In this case, I think what his family was like in the earlier years were very important to him. He mentions his son, Mitt, many times along with his wife, Lelia, who is mentioned in almost every chapter. Henry mentions that his mother dies, his father dies, AND his son dies. These statements invoke pain and sorrow into the reader. Although he mentions his sometimes bad relationship with his parents, he mentions them several times, reminiscing about the past. Henry also reminisces about Mitt as much as he does about his parents. He mentions events where Mitt was involved; it usually involved his wife as well.

“But then I must remember how our son once loved the place: I can still see Mitt running wind sprints back and forth down the length of the room, hear the patter of his socked feet, see him sliding the last few yards, twirling to a halt, some beautiful kid” (24).

With all his family dead, he only has Lelia left, but she decided to leave him as well. This might be the reason why he is thinking of the past so much; he feels alone and sad that he has no family to support him.

One last image in the novel that is mentioned time and time again is the nationality differences. Images of Koreans, Americans, and Korean-Americans show the division Henry feels. He doesn’t know where he belongs, whether it be with the Koreans or with the Americans. His father seems to like whites, especially Lelia. “He never said it, but I knew he liked the fact that Lelia was white” (58). Later on, Henry mentions how his father thought American girls never paid attention to Asian guys, and that Henry’s situation was no exception. “‘You don’t know nothing! This American girl, she nobody for you. She don’t know nothing about you. You Korean man. So so different’” (74). On the other hand, Henry’s house maid thought the complete opposite from his father. She thought that whites and half-whites were disgusting and nothing would change her mind. “There’s nothing for your American wife and me to talk about” (71). “The woman didn’t seem to accept Mitt, she seemed to sour when she looked upon his round, only half-Korean eyes and the reddish highlights in his hair” (71). With so many polarized opinions, Henry doesn’t know which side he is on, and he doesn’t even know if he is on a side. A constant conflict in this novel is his identity and a big part of his identity is his nationality and where he was born.