Native Speaker

Reactions to the Finale

2009-12-09T18:31:00.004-05:00

IT'S OVER!! And what an interesting turn of events...

I thought the finale was very good,a happy ending! Although the beginning and the middle of this novel was a very slow read, the ending turned into quite a thriller. John Kwang confessed his feelings and secrets to Henry which came as a shock to me as a reader because I was not expecting that at all.

""I didn't give him any money!" he yells, slamming his glass on the table. "How many times do I have to repeat myself? He worked for me for nothing, the same as you. For nothing, except for what I might show him about our life, what is possible for people like us. I though this is what he wanted. Was I crazy? I would have given him anything in my power. But he was betraying us, Henry. Betraying everything we were doing. To De Roos, I must think! Reports! You see, there is horror in your face. Think of mine when I found him out. i loved him, Henry, I grieve for him, but he was disloyal, the most terrible thing, a traitor. I left it to Han and his gang. I didn't know it would happen like that, and with Helda. You are the only one who knows now" (311).""

This happened after a bomb accident occurred in the buildings John Kwang worked in, killing two people: one was a maid while the other one was a young college student who John was very close to. Through this confession, I learned two key points which are 1. Eduardo was a traitor and 2. John ordered a Korean gang to punish him, but didn't expect their deaths. For point one, I think Eduardo being labelled as a traitor paralleled with Henry and his job. Henry is very close to John Kwang now, even thinking of John as a friend like he did with Dr. Luzan. Eduardo being exposed as a traitor could have scared Henry because he is also a traitor. Both Eduardo and Henry were giving out information on John Kwang to others in secret. Also, Henry must have felt alot of guilt because he was like Eduardo in such a way. After John Kwang got into an accident (another unforseen event), he seemed to have disappeared for a long time. I think part of that reason was because of point number two. John felt this massive wave of guilt for being indirectly responsible for the deaths of two people, so much that it sucked the life out of him. This reminds me of The Scarlet Letter when Dimmesdale's guilt just deteriorates his physical condition as well as his mental condition. Later on, John Kwang finally reveals himself and allows the massive (and angry) crowd to pummel him. In this scene, Henry shows for the first time his courage and his first action towards protecting a friend of his. "And when I reach him I strike at them" (343) is when he starts to attack the crowd because John was in danger. I think it's interesting how after this scene, John disappears from the storyline; i think that is because Henry finally realized who he was at that point of the story.

The ending to this book had a very light mood which contrasted with the falling action of the novel. The falling action was when John Kwang showed himself to the crowd after vanishing for awhile. The ending to Native Speaker was a completely different mood. It paralleled with Henry's decision in quitting his job which seemed to bring out his once hidden emotions. He is now spending a lot of time with Lelia, helping her with the speech impaired students and focusing on family. In some way, even though they aren't talking to each other while helping the students, the two seem to share a stronger connection at the end of the novel.

"Lelia gives each one a sticker. She uses the class list to write their names inside the sunburst-shaped badge. Everybody, she says, has been a good citizen. she will say the name, quickly write on the sticker, and then have me press it to each of their chests as they leave. it is a line of quiet faces. I take them down in my head. Now, she calls out each one as best as she can, taking care of every last pitch and accent, and I hear her speaking a dozen lovely and native languages, calling all the difficult names of who we are" (349).

This last paragraph of the novel wraps up how Henry feels now. Looking at the cultural diversity in the kids they are teaching, Henry now sees all the beauty in different languages and different looks. Before, Henry was very focused on finding out who he was. He wasn't sure whether he was Korean, American, or neither, but he wanted to fit into some category; he wanted to know where he fit in society as a whole. He gradually learned that the different languages show different identities and that in the end, his identity might actually be expressed in mulitiple cultures; that is the beauty of it. I think identity and figuring out your worth in this world is one of the biggest themes in Native Speaker. I think what Chang-Rae Lee is trying to say is that everyone has a reason to why he/she is here, and by going through obstacles (maybe not as dramatic as Henry's obstacles), there is a chance to find a person's true emotions and reason to live.

Rhetoric Study

2009-12-08T20:50:00.005-05:00

"I used to love to walk these streets of Flushing with Lelia and Mitt, bring them back here on Sunday trips during the summer. We would eat cold buckwheat noodles at a Korean restaurant near the subway station and then go browsing in the big Korean groceries, not corner vegetable stands like my father's but real supermarkets with every kind of Asian food. Mitt always marveled at the long wall of glassed-door refrigerators stacked full with gallon jars of five kinds of kimchee, and even he noticed that if a customer took one down the space was almost immediately filled with another. The kimchee museum, he'd say, with appropriate awe. Then, Lelia would stray off to the butcher's section, Mitt to the candies. I always went to the back, to the magazine section, and although I couldn't read the Korean well I'd pretend anyway...Eventually I'd hear Lelia's voice, calling to both of us, calling the only English to be heard that day in the store, and we would meet again at the register with what we wanted, the three of us, looking like a fmaily accident, gathering on the counter the most serendipitous pile. We got looks. Later, after he died, I'd try it again...but in the end we would separately wander the aisles not looking for anything, except at the last moment, when we finally encountered each other, who was not him." (345)

The impact of this passage from the novel is mainly shown through the extensive use of imagery. In this specific passage, he describes every action that the family took as well as descriptions of places and things. He uses long sentences which makee it seem like he is writing this from whatever he's thinking instead of proofreading what he just wrote down. The long sentences with the multiple commas give off a feeling that the whole passage is an ongoing process of reminiscient thinking. It helps the readers to picture the whole setting with the restaurant, the street, and obviously the supermarket. The use of transition words also help to not only picture the setting but also the sequence of events. He kindly uses these transition words to help guide the readers through his day at the supermarket with his family.

Although this passage may seem to be just about a day at the supermarket, it has a much more deeper meaning as a whole. The last sentence that starts with "Later, after he died, I'd try it again" really shows part of his emotions that Henry didn't really express in the beginning of the novel. I can see that he is really suffering from Mitt's death and both he and Lelia are still hoping that it's not true. This scene is one of those instances when Henry goes into a flashback and shows how much he regrets or misses something. He really misses his son, obviously, but this goes back to the whole idea of how he regrets not saving Mitt. He has this guilty conscience that keeps piling up, and I think his thinking about the past and all the good memories help him to lower the guilt a bit. Really, the last sentence is what helps the author achieve his purpose of showing how much Mitt meant to Lelia and Henry, and how they are suffering even to this day.

Identity: American or Korean?

2009-12-08T19:14:00.004-05:00

The most conflicting question for the main protagonist of this novel is "Who, or even What, is he?"

As the story begins, Henry shows us the list of descriptions that Lelia jotted down for him and gave to him before she left for the islands. It mentioned descriptions such as "emotional alien," "stranger," "traitor," and "spy" (5). This note made Henry realized that he doesn't truly know who he was, whether he was an American or a Korean. The main conflict with this question was that it seemed, to him at least, that he belonged to neither one. He was an American citizen, but only because his mother gave birth to him after the plane ride from Seoul, Korea. "I wondered if I could ever desire as much from this land. My citizenship is an accident of birth, my mother delivering me on this end of a long plane ride from Seoul. In truth, she didn't want me to be an American" (334-335). Part of his skepticism on his identity could stem from the fact that his mother didn't want him to be an American, but his father loved the thought of him being an American.

Another reason could be because of the language barriers. Henry's English was pretty good, but it took a lot of though and calculation for Henry to say something. He was NOT a "native speaker" because some words could not come out of his mouth naturally. On the other hand, his Korean was horrible; he couldn't speak the language very well, preventing him from communicating efficiently with other Korean people. "If I had the sentence, the right words, I would ask her about her family and she could tell me about her daughter and her son. If I were able with my speech..." (316). His inability to speak Korean fluently is keeping him from discovering and exploring the Korean culture and his roots, which is making him question his Korean identity. On the other side of the wall, he is an American citizen, but he is not white, so that makes him feel different; it makes him feel uneasy calling himself an American because Americans are usually associated with white people. Not to mention, he will never be able to speak perfect English because he is also Korean. "I thought English would be simply a version of our Korean. Like another kind of coat you could wear. I didn't know what a difference in language meant then. Or how my tongue would tie in the initial attempts, stuffen so, struggle like an animal booby-trapped and dying inside my head" (233). Henry realizes that English is not like Korean and Korean is not like English; in a certain way, Henry can't speak neither Korean nor English perfectly which makes him feel like an alien from both of his so called cultures or roots. In this way, he doesn't really belong in the American or the Korean cultures.

"I told him how I didn't know the subtle nuances of meanings of Korean names, even though I knew quite a few, that it would have been like naming someone purely by sound. And he wouldn't want an American name, because everybody else had one, because it was all so ordinary...He knew karate, kung fu, tae kwon do, jujitsu. He could be up the big black kids if he wished, the tough Puerto Rican kids, anyone else who called us names or made slanty eyes...He knew all about science, about model rocketry, chemistry sets, baseball cards, about American history. He was the lead in the school play. He spoke a singing beautiful English...He was perfect" (205).

This passage on page 205 was one of the few passages that actually revealed who and what Henry wants to be. This is when Henry is talking to Luzan about his "invisible brother." He mentions how he didn't know Korean enough to name his "brother" with a Korean name that had a special meaning, but he didn't like American names because they were too ordinary. This goes along with the idea that he is split between Korea and America and quite possibly, he could fit under neither of the two. The description of this "brother" is an ideal image of someone who Henry wants to become. This imaginary person is smart, athletic, strong, courageous, popular, and any other positive adjective you could think of. He's merely perfect and that is what Henry wants to be, perfect. Even though it's just one small part of the whole passage, the part where he says this person sang in "beautiful English" stood out to me because I knew that one of the few things Henry wishes he could do was speak perfect English to be part of at least one group. This ongoing conflict is solved at the end when he realizes that he might just be part of both of them, but it doesn't matter as long as you know what you're doing, but this question of his identity is one of the key points of the novel.

The Past

2009-12-07T21:35:00.003-05:00

One of the key things I've noticed throughout the novel was the constant shift between the past and the present. There is some great significance in Henry's constant flashbacks because I think the past represents everything he regrets whereas the present is full of conflicts and issues he deals with that makes him a stronger person in the end. It pulls the whole "live in the present" and "learn from your mistakes" aphorisms together throughout the novel.

One place where I see the past being a time of regret is when he talks about his son, Mitt. "You suddenly notice that all of his friends are wild, bad kids, the kind that hold lighted firecrackers until the very last second, or torment the neighborhood animals. Mitt, the clean and bright one--somehow, miraculously, ours--runs off with them anyway, shouting the praises of his perfect life" (100). This goes back to the whole idea of how Henry regrets not being able to prevent Mitt's death either by stopping the kids from crushing Mitt or by stopping Mitt from continuously hanging out with these children who were horrible examples to follow. He always describes Mitt as an angelic type of kid who was "clean and bright," but several instances in the book, Henry mentions the kids who contrasted with Mitt's character. I can take this further and say that holistically, the relationship between the bad kids and Mitt might be a microcosm for Henry's relationship with the world. Henry can be seen as the caring and nice man who has this horrible job of basically ratting out bad or even good people like John Kwang and Dr. Luzan. The world is this horrible, dark place where Henry is forced to continue to do this job that he feels uncomfortable doing. The only difference between him and Mitt is Henry was able to overcome the world and fight for his idenity (identities) whereas Mitt was not strong enough to fight off the other children.

Henry may regret the past, but in the present he starts to realize who he is and what he has been doing wrong. "And the more I see and remember the more their story is the same. The story is mine. How I come by plane, come by boat. Come climbing over a fence. When I get here, I work. I work for the day I will finally work for myself. I work so hard that one day I end up forgetting the person I am. I forget my wife, my son. Now, too, I have lost my old mother tongue. And I forget the ancestral graves I have left on a hillside of a faraway land, the loneliest stones that each year go unblessed" (279). Henry is somewhat of a workaholic; he concentrated so much on his work that he did not spend enough time with his son and his wife. He regrets doing that to his son the most because now, although he has the chance to spend more time with Lelia now that he realized this, Mitt is long gone, and he will not be coming back. This adds to the pity that I feel for Henry and for Lelia as well. Also, Henry sometimes forgets about his parents; now that he is reflecting on some of the actions his parents did, Henry feels like he should have treated his parents, especially his father, with a better attitude. Although he always listened to his father and what he ordered Henry to do, it seemed like Henry felt servile under his father. Now, he realizes that what his father did (giving up his succes in Korea to work hard in America) was one of the biggest things that Henry took for granted.

Character Study

2009-12-07T18:54:00.005-05:00

Henry Park: Henry is the main protagonist of Native Speaker. Henry has a wife named Lelia. They had a baby boy together named Mitt, but he died in an accident which I believe caused the temporary drift between Lelia and Henry (they are now together again). He is very reminiscent and thinks a lot about his past. One key thing to remember is that although he does go into his past several times, all of the memories have some connection to a family member or there is some hidden meaning behind his flashback; hidden meanings could include some kind of life message, a characterization of an important character of the novel, or something that reveals Henry's feelings about a certain topic. Also something to note is that many of Henry's memories have to do with his father or his son, both of whom are now dead. "In truth, Lelia's own eventual list was probably just karmic justice for what I made him [his dad] endure those final nights" (49) is an example of a time when he mentions his father's last moments. Henry seems to carry a lot of hidden grief and regret bottled up inside his head which I think serves as a constant theme throughout the whole novel. Henry also works a very dangerous job; he is assigned a person to "study" for a given amount of time, and then he writes a report that might involve juicy secrets for the client who hired him. He eventually gets out of the job which is clearly stated when Lelia said, "You don't work for Dennis anymore" (336). Throughout the novel, Henry has difficulty deciding whether he should act American or Korean; Henry can not speak Korean fluently, but he is always surround with his Korean culture whether it is when he walks down the street to the Korean grocery store or if it is when he eats Korean food. He finally realizes that it is okay to be uncertain about his identity, and that it might even be better to have different cultures inside of you.

Lelia Park: Lelia is Henry's wife. In the beginning of the novel, the two were in a complicated relationship; at the end, Lelia and Henry are together again, happily teaching children with speech impairment. When they first met, she recognizes that Henry is very calculative and secretive. "You 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" (12). His enigmatic personality eventually causes Lelia to separate him for a while, but towards the end of the novel, they both realize how much they love each other and begin to undergo the same feelings they had for each other when they first met. "She looks sick for me" (336) is the thought that makes him finally realize that he is her number one priority right now, and he should express it as well instead of keeping it to himself. Lelia and Henry had an unexpected child named Mitt who was the strongest connection between Lelia and Henry. After he died, Lelia and Henry did not talk to one another for a long time, thinking it would be best to leave one another alone. I think a large reason why Lelia spends so much time with kids of different races who can't speak English very well is that she thinks of Mitt and sees him in the children. Lelia is a foil for Henry; their personalities are totally opposite, but they both help one another through harsh situations, resulting in a happy ending.

Mitt Park: Mitt is Lelia's and Henry's son who seemed to be the happiest child on the earth; he was also an accidental baby, but even though Lelia and Henry weren't expecting him, his birth was the happiest thing Lelia and Henry ever experienced together. Even though Mitt was innocent and naive, he hung around the bad kids on the block. In some way or another, one day, Henry came home to find Lelia crying as she held a limp Mitt. Mitt was killed after being suffocated under a dog pile of children from his grandfather's neighborhood. "I ran around the side of the house without turning off the ignition. All the boys were standing there lock-kneed. In the middle of them was Lelia, sitting on the grass, cradling his dead blue head in her arms and lap and rocking on her knees" (105). I think his death caused Henry and Lelia to realize a few things about each other and about life. A lot of regret surrounds Mitt; we see that when Henry constantly takes us to a flashback of a time when Mitt did this or Mitt did that. Henry truly misses Mitt and wishes he was there to prevent his death.

Henry's mother and father: Although Mrs. Park is hardly mentioned, Mr. Park (Henry's father) is mentioned all the time as a strict but typical Korean father. He is mentioned in what seems like half of Henry's flashbacks. These flashbacks range from his father's earlier times when he owned a grocery store to the times when Mr. Park was dying in the hospital. Both his parents are dead. Henry's father also serves as a foil to Henry. His father is seen as an ideal Korean man such as when his mother mentioned what a powerful man his father was: "how he was able to discard his excellent Korean education and training, which were once his greatest pride, the very markings by which he had known himself, before he was able to set straight his mind and spirit and make a life for his family" (333). Even though Henry "berated him for the way he had conduct4ed his life with his mother, and then his housekeeper, and his businesses and beliefs," I think doing that was one of the biggest regrets of his life because later on, he mentions how much he looks up to his father for being so strong and courageous.

John Kwang: John Kwang is the first victim for Henry's job after Dr. Luzan. He is described as what seems to me to be the perfect man. He was "handsome, irreproachable" (23). He is Korean and is potentially running for mayor. He appeals to the minority groups. The first time John and Henry met involved no talking whatsoever, but it seemed like John and Henry had some kind of connection because they were both Korean-Americans. Their relationship gets a little shaky towards the end when John confesses that he ordered the Korean gangs to punish a man named Eduardo for pretending to be his best friend, but becoming a traitor for John's rival, De Roos. Instead, the situation went crazy, and Eduardo and a woman named Helda ended up getting killed when the gangs put the building on fire. This eventually ruins John along with his car accident with an illegal sixteen years old Korean girl who was something like an Asian prostitute. Even so, Henry feels alot of empathy for John, helping him get through the upset crowd at the end which could have, with no exaggeration, literally killed John. "I strike at everything that shouts and calls. Everything but his face...And at the very moment I fall back for good he glimpses who I am, and I see him crouch down, like a broken child, shielding from me his wide immigrant face" (343). His relationship with John eventually leads to Henry finally quitting his job.

Dr. Luzan: Although Dr. Luzan is not one of the major characters of the novel, he has had a huge impact on Henry. Henry's job is to spy on people and write reports to be sent to his boss who will then send them to the client. Dr. Luzan was the first person Henry felt a connection with on the job. Luzan was so good at understanding Henry as a person that Henry began to forget about his job, and he began to love Luzan as a very good friend, even a best friend. Henry was eventually called off the job, but Luzan forever affected his way of thinking. Luzan was drowned, and it is unclear if it was really an accident or a murder. Henry thinks about Luzan; he sees another relationship with John Kwang like he did with Luzan.

Jack Kalantzakos: Jack is Henry's co-worker and very good friend. His wife died, and he has been single ever since. Jack offers alot of insight to Henry; he truly feels that Lelia and Henry were meant to be together, and that the complicated relationship between the two was just an obstacle to overcome. He is also trying to keep Henry on track with his job on John Kwang. He can tell that Henry is starting to like John Kwang as a friend like he did with Luzan. Jack wants to help Henry get through; he can see the troubles that Henry feels, but does not ask what's on Henry's mind, showing that Jack is very sincere and not nosy. Although he is not a major character, he is important because he keeps Henry from getting to emotionally attached to a person who might end up like Dr. Luzan.

An Important Passage-Please count as a regular post. The Rhetoric Study will come later! Thank you!

2009-11-24T02:59:00.007-05:00

“ In his earnestness, Dr. Luzan kept delving further into my psyche, plumbing the depths. I was developing into a model case. Of course I was switching between him and me, getting piecemeals of the doctor with projections in an almost classical mod, but for the first time I found myself at moments running short of my story, my chosen narrative. Normally I would have ceased matters temporarily, retreated to Westchester to reiterate and revise. But inexplicably I began stringing the legend back upon myself. I was no longer extrapolating; I was looping it through the core, freely talking about my life, suddenly breaching the confidences of my father and my mother and my wife. I even spoke to him about a lost dead son. I was becoming dangerously frank, inconsistently schizophrenic. I ceased listening to him altogether. Like a good doctor he let me go on and on, and in moments I felt he was the only one in the world who might comfort me. I genuinely began to like him. I looked forward to our fifty-minute sessions on Thursday mornings, enough so that we began meeting on Mondays as well. Hoagland assumed I was stepping up the operation. When I was in the chair across the desk from Luzan I completely lost myself. I was becoming a dependent, a friend” (22-23).

One of the first things I noticed about this passage was his short, choppy sentences with the exception of one sentence. Although grammatically speaking the sentences are very short and choppy, when I read it, it felt like the passage had really long sentences. I think this effect paralleled with the fact that Henry wanted his sessions to be longer and longer each time he went over to Dr. Luzan’s office. He even made it twice a week instead of just once a week. There was also a change of attitude from the protagonist. At first, I saw him as just a pitiful man who lost all of his family, but in this passage, he found Luzan to be a friend, and it made me feel happy for him.

Another thing I noticed was that even though Henry was supposed to lie about his life (his “legend”), he started to speak the truth and talk to Dr. Luzan about everything, even the touchy subject of his dead son. This shows the reader how comfortable he felt with Luzan which is a nice change of pace from the Henry who didn’t even open up that much to his own wife. I think it was good that Henry was able to talk one on one with someone he considered a friend about all the ups and downs of his life and what he wants to do next. Also, it was good that he “completely lost” himself because so many things went wrong for Henry that sometimes it would have been good for him to just forget everything and just talk.

His job was to gather information about Dr. Luzan secretly. Of course he did that little by little, but I think after getting to know Luzan, Henry started to feel sorry and even started to forget that he was on a job. Even though normally he would have reconstructed his “legend” if something went wrong, this time he just went with the flow and started adding truth to the lie. I think this further tells the reader that Henry just needs someone that can support him and be there for him when times get rough. He just needs a true friend who will not only help him get through situations, but also help him identify who he is as a person and what he should be doing with his life.

Personal Response on Several Topics

2009-11-24T02:32:00.005-05:00

So far in Native Speaker, I have mixed feelings for the main protagonist, Henry Park. When I read about his mother, father, and son dying, obviously I felt pity, anguish, sorrow, and any other possible depressing mood. I’m sure that everyone who has read this book can sympathize with this protagonist. Some of his actions are uncalled for though. One example of a time his actions were a little too much was when he was talking to his father about how bad of a husband he was and any other criticisms he could think. “In truth, Lelia’s own eventual list was probably just karmic justice for what I made him endure those final nights, which was my berating him for the way he had conducted his life with my mother, and then his housekeeper, and his businesses and beliefs, to speak once and for all the less than holy versions of who he was” (49). Although this is how Henry truly felt, I don’t think it was necessary to say all these things to a dying man, not to mention his father.

I can connect a lot with the narrator of this novel. Not only am I a Korean American like he is, but also I understand a lot of the family situations he goes through, especially his feelings towards Asian stereotypes and how he feels about Korean parents.

“I was to inherit them, the legacy unfurling before me this way: you worked from before sunrise to the dead of night. You were never unkind in your dealings, but then you were not generous. Your family was your life, though you rarely saw them. You kept close handsome sums of cash in small denominations. You were steadily cornering the market in self-pride. You drove a Chevy and then a Caddy and then a Benz. You never missed a mortgage payment or a day of church. You prayed furiously until you wept. You considered the only unseen forces to be those of capitalism and the love of Jesus Christ” (47).

This whole paragraph has statements that a typical Asian lives by; I am no exception. My father and my mother both work really hard to earn money for the family, but my brothers and I hardly see them except on their day off or when they return at around 10 at night. Of course, I am used to it by now, but I understand where Henry is coming from, especially the part where he talks about how he comes home to an empty house sometimes. Although he has it worst than me, I think this connection I have with the narrator helps me to better understand what the author is trying to get at in terms of emotions and understanding.

As I was reading through a chapter, I noticed a little aphorism that was briefly stated, but was strongly placed in my mind. A minor character named Dennis Hoagland stated, “no matter how smart you are, no one is smart enough to see the whole world. There’s always a picture too big to see… someone is always bigger than you. If they want, they’ll shut you up. They’ll bring you down” (46). I think this statement was a very simple way of describing how life is now. There are people in this world who believe they know everything because they are intellectuals to a high degree. Even if someone was the most intelligent person in the nation, no one is smart enough to know everything that goes on in this world. No one can predict accurately and precisely what will happen 100 years from now. No one will know if someone close to a person will die tomorrow or 50 years from now. I think this statement can also be a theme; no matter how smart you are, you will never know everything. There will always be someone higher than you or smarter than you or more athletic than you. In Henry’s case, he would have never known when his mother, father, or son would die. I think he is regretting everything so much that he is just stuck in one place. In fact, he might be moving backwards, constantly reminding himself of the past that is already over with. He needs to move on with life and try to at least fix things with his wife who is still alive, but ready to leave him.

Themes from American Literature

2009-11-24T01:43:00.002-05:00

There could be many themes in this novel, but I think many of them are related somehow with family. Do not take your family for granted; choose family over everything else. I think these two themes come up many times as the narrator, Henry Park, switched back and forth from the present to the past.

Do not take your family for granted and choose your family over everything else. Henry lost all of his family some way or another. His mother died, then Mitt died, then his father died in that exact order. Afterwards, Lelia, his wife, left him, leaving him with only a piece of paper of what seems to be a list of insults. This is a very good case that supports both themes mentioned above. He is starting to realize all the things he missed out on, and all the things he did wrong. With his mother, he doesn’t even remember what happened in the hospital room the day she died. “I don’t now remember what I saw in her room, maybe I never actually looked at her” (59). With his father, he probably regrets many things: not being able to allow his father to show his true feelings, only criticizing him for his faults, having so many unnecessary fights… “In truth, Lelia’s own eventual list was probably just karmic justice for what I made him endure those final nights, which was my berating him for the way he had conducted his life with my mother, and then his housekeeper, and his businesses and beliefs, to speak once and for all the less than holy versions of who he was” (49). In the case of Mitt, the reader is still unsure of how he died, but it seems like he spent a lot of time with Mitt in the past before he died because when Henry reminisces about the past, it seems like Mitt is having a fun time in each event he is mentioned in. As for Lelia, I’m sure Henry is full of regret. He knew his marriage was falling apart, yet he was still focused on his job and wasn’t thoughtful of her feelings. “this was the way, the very slow way, that our conversations were spoiling… For the next few days, Lelia was edgy. She wouldn’t say much to me” (70). Henry had no idea how to deal with fights and how to make Lelia feel better. This eventually caused her to leave him alone with no one to talk to except his friends at work.

Henry also has a taste of living a lie and living life with regrets. When he first met Lelia, he was very calculative, lying about who he truly was. “I made those phantom calculations, did all that blind math so that I might cast for her the perfect picture of a face” (13). Instead of acting like his usual self, he tried to be her ideal man and calculated his every move in his head. Another thing that supports the idea of Henry living a lie is the fact that his job is to lie. “We worked by contriving intricate and open-ended emotional conspiracies. We became acquaintances, casual friends. Sometimes lovers… Then we wrote the tract of their lives, remote, unauthorized biographies. I the most prodigal and mundane of historians” (18). His job impacted the way he lived his life, causing him to unintentionally calculate his actions and emotions. These themes all intertwine with each other. Living life with regrets is a result to taking family for granted or not setting priorities straight. All these themes are cause and effect, and it just so turns out that Henry suffered all these unfortunate events.

Live life with no regrets is a common theme that everyone talks about, but it’s true; living life with regrets will cause a person to keep looking back into the past instead of moving on as in Henry’s case. Taking family for granted can also follow a person everywhere, especially if it is Henry since many of his family members died. These themes correlate with the conflicts of the novel which include relationships (love or family) and identity problems. Also these themes say things about the cultural identities of Americans. You can find anyone in America and ask if they have any regrets, only to be given either a truthful answer or a lie. Some people say they have no regrets, but in my opinion, I think everyone has at least one regret; it could be small or big as long as you want to change what the result was. I think in this novel, Chang-Rae Lee is saying that people will always regret something and that instead of hovering over the regret, people should just move on in order to not create another regret in the present.

Citations for Images

2009-11-24T01:41:00.004-05:00

Images viewed and cited on 23 November 2009.

http://thegrandnarrative.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/korean-child-and-lonely-goose-father.jpg

***http://www.flickr.com/photos/giraffeheart/3534213657/

http://therealsouthkorea.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/jims-family.jpg

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/asia/southkorea/flag/Flagbig.GIF

http://people.eku.edu/pedersonn/mongoliaFire/american-flag.gif

*** due to technical difficulties, the second picture was replaced with a new picture. This image was viewed and cited on 7 December 2009.

Image Study

2009-11-24T00:29:00.015-05:00

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.

And the Curtain Opens...

2009-11-24T00:15:00.008-05:00

“The day my wife left she gave me a list of who I was” (1).

This quote is the start of a beautiful novel called Native Speaker written by Chang-Rae Lee. What is interesting about this first sentence is that it automatically brings up a continued conflict that is gradually explained throughout the first two chapters. It also introduces our main protagonist, Henry Park, and his wife, Lelia Park, who is mentioned a plethora of times as the novel progresses.

The beginning of the quote, “The day my wife left,” can be taken several different ways. Did she leave him for good? Is she taking a break away from him? Is she just going on a vacation? All these questions pop up in the reader’s mind just by reading a couple of words. Not only that, but it leads the reader to ask the main conflict question: Why is she leaving him? As the chapter goes on, the reader finds out that she is not necessarily divorcing with him, but she is leaving him for a good amount of time. Even so, it still directs the reader back to the question of why she is leaving him. At the airport, where he goes to see her off, she hands him a note for him to read in the car. It says that following words:

“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

Spy” (5).

Obviously, many of the descriptions of Henry show conflict, whether it is in the words she uses to describe their relationship or in the words she uses to describe him as a person. Words like “stranger,” “traitor,” and “spy” are not necessarily the best way to describe your husband, so why does she write these hurtful words down? There is also some insight into Henry Park just by reading some of the nouns and adjectives Lelia writes down on this piece of paper. “Anti-romantic” is a huge word that correlates with the conflict introduced. My predictions are that Henry did not show her enough love to keep her love going. She might have given up on getting him to be more romantic with her. On the other hand, maybe she is just too romantic and wants more out of Henry that he cannot give her. Hopefully this conflict will be further elaborated on. Another shocking description is “Yellow peril: neo-American.” Peril is something that causes a lot of destruction or chaos; Lelia here describes him as a “yellow peril” referring to his ethnicity. He must have done something to cause her to make such a bold description of him. Later in the novel, the reader can kind of see why she refers to him as a “yellow peril” or the many other descriptions she wrote down, but again, the first chapter alone brings so many questions into mind; it hooks the reader, making him or her read on in order to decipher unanswered questions.

Testing Testing 123

2009-11-23T12:50:00.001-05:00

This is a testing post. Please do not count this as one of the 10 entries (:

I will be analyzing the book Native Speaker by Chang Rae Lee.