Essay Questions

Doc Hata is an emblem of the difficult life of war veterans in modern society. Using illustrations from Chang-Rae Lee’s “A Gesture Life,” demonstrate the truthfulness of this statement.

The aftermath of involvement in war is often devastating, annihilating and overwhelming for most war veterans. A Gesture Life is a novel that follows the life of the protagonist Doc Hata who is also a war veteran after having served in the Second World War for the Imperial army of Japan as a caregiver for abducted, and women seized by the army for the sole purpose of providing forced sexual relief for the men of the army.

Throughout A Gesture Life, Chang-Rae Lee explores the repercussion and causatum of Doc’s involvement in the war. The story is narrated in Doc’s point of view which is basically a tumultuous, impulsive and a rash of unified extraneous flashbacks. The thoughts from his past surround his time in Japan as well as his time in the United States. As the reader continues through the novel, it becomes apparent that these flashbacks are interlinked by one particular phenomenon—dread. Having worked with victims of rape in the war, the memories of that particular time leave him in a traumatic state. Particularly, Doc is haunted by the memory of one victim by the name of K—a woman who had been sold by her parents to provide sexual relief for the army forcefully. Additionally, Doc suffers post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following his time in the army.

Chang-Rae Lee magnificently and splendidly presents A Gesture Life as an exploration of the particular effect of the exposure of the main character to traumatic situations in the second world war and the particular effect that the exposure has on him. The writer presents Doc Hata as an emblem and a symbol of the difficult life that most war veterans suffer. He presents the entire novel based on the impact of the disorder that Doc Hata suffered as a result of the war and the way it influences his life based on his relationship with his adopted daughter Sunny. From this point of view, it can be argued that Doc Hata is indeed Lee’s way of exploring life of veterans.

War has calamitous effect on women. Using illustrations from A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee, illustrate the truthfulness of this statement.

Chang-Rae Lee explores the effect of the second world war clearly presenting the effect that it has on women. During the second world war, it becomes clear as the novel progresses that women suffer the most. In the novel, Doc Hata presents a case of the particular oppression that women face in times of war. Women are sold by their parents to work as sex slaves for the men of the army. The women are forced to indulge in sexual acts with the soldiers irrespective of whether or not they provide their consent. In the novel, Chang-Rae uses Doc Hata to present his disgust for the particular oppression as noted by Hata’s particular disregard for the practice and the trauma that follows. Hata suffers stress disorder courtesy of his inability to cope with the reality of K’s situation.