A Gesture Life recuperation of identity and gesture - Essay Example

Essay, English Topic: “A Gesture Life”—recuperation of identity and gesture Introduction: Just like a sick man recoups his original health, the theme in “A Gesture Life,” by Chang-Rae-Lee relates to recuperation of identity and gesture by a ‘sick’ individual. An old man by name Doc Hata, a famous personality in a tight-knit community, is obsessed with guarding his secrets from the people around him, to preserve his positive reputation. The people in the town hold him in high esteem and consider him to be a gentleman. Hata is a Korean by birth but taken care of by a Japanese family. He is interested in his Japanese identity, acts like one, and he wants to sweep his Korean past under the carpet. He wants to be known as only Japanese. During World War II, he serves in the Japanese army as a medical assistant in a country that has a history of discrimination towards Koreans. Hata is careful enough never to speak in Korean tongue and desires to keep his Korean past a secret at all times and at all costs. His encounter with a Korean comfort woman who is fleeing from a Japanese Officer is testimony to this attitude. Hata convinces the girl to stay on and he speaks to her in Korean language. When the Officer enquires of him what he speaks to the girl, Hata is very keen for not getting exposed, says it is nothing. The Officer is persistent and says that he “thought [he] heard [Hata] say something, in her tongue" (Lee, 112). He thinks that the danger of discovery of his real identity lurks on him. Hata denies his knowledge about Korean language. He is afraid that his edifice of secrecy would collapse and he would become the laughing stock among fellow-soldiers. His reputation is of utmost importance to him and he wants to protect his image. He is intent upon negating certain aspects of his past, and wants to chisel a new personality out of him. He manipulates people around him and uses it as a permanent tool to fox the people. Erasing his original background, he assumes a Japanese identity, stating proudly: "Im a medical officer of the Imperial Forces, and theres nothing else to be said…. I spoke some Korean as a boy. But then no more" (Lee,235).He lives with two parts of his life-- the life he is living for public scrutiny and the life that remains hidden for his private consumption. Both are poles apart. Secrets have a mysterious role in one’s life. They serve dual purposes to hide or spread information. Secrets are like the tiny den of knowledge to expose the convenient and hide the inconvenient information. With such secrets, a person can paint oneself as per one’s choice. No one reveals the entire stock of his inner world. No one can know the other person fully. We know only a part of truth not the whole truth. Secrets make the existence of humankind fascinating and challenging. We manipulate our knowledge to project what we are not and what we would like to be. Hata does the same. In effect this story relates to re-inventing of an imagined identity. The context is trans-national and the issue relates to immigration. Hata tries to rebuild and revitalize the identity of his choice, to meet the situational challenge that he is confronting. He meets the challenges at the psychological and secular levels for the intended identity change. He faces them from the three-cornered identity test, Korean, Japanese and then transplanted to America. He wants to hide one identity at the cost of the other, to rebuild the third and the process is to live through the conflicted identities. He wishes to carry on with the available discipline, when perfect discipline is denied to him in life and over which he has no control. He thinks himself to be an exile, while being a citizen of America. This out-of-place existence creates multifarious issues at the physical and psychological levels. This traumatic experience is part of his life. The story depicts how a character makes a valiant effort to move towards a perfect understanding of identity from disjointed existence, constantly making revisions about various facets of the personality. He accepts his life with a sense of fatalism and becomes part of so many unexpected happenings in life and observes them like a witness. Finally, selling the house allows him to make a fresh start in life, and to be free from many symbolic, psychological hurdles to which he remains indebted until this moment. The author employs the flashback technique ably. Other highlights of the story are its lyrical perfection, and its poetic structure. Here is a good psychological drama, written with unemotional stance and sense of detachment. Conclusion Any non-native American can relate to the theme of living ones life as a mere "gesture" as opposed to living it fully and more meaningfully, as depicted in the life of Hata in the novel. He lives his life with the twin facades, one as the doctor and second as the Japanese individual. Doctor is his pseudo-designation and as such it us a façade. He has made the imperfect moral choices on both the counts. In the end, his willingness to let the past surface and impact the present is what redeems him and allows him to re-establish emotional connections. Works Cited Lee, Chang-Rae. A Gesture Life. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999 Read More