Essay Questions

Summarize Chang-Rae Lee's perception of Americans?

Lee writes, “Americans, one of them would say, are wonderful and exuberant people. They dance, they play-fight, they puff up the lips and blow out their chests. They enjoy using their hands. They seem to live always at a football match. They stand in broken columns and flurry with both arms and both legs and they are not afraid to make a mess of themselves. They don’t so much sing as they do chant. Chanting is more satisfying, at least how they do it. Their calls first start all together and slow and then pick up speed and volume until they finally dissipate to spate voices and rounds of hand clapping and cheers.” Here, Lee depicts Americans are cheerful people who delight in carnival. Their liveliness is evident when they are chanting and using their body parts. Observing the Americans’ merry-making confirms that they shy from indulging themselves in pleasure. Consequently, the Americans are mostly happy and they show their gladness.

Explain Henry Park's ideology of marriage.

Henry Park asserts, “But then marriage must be the willingness to walk the blind alleys. Maybe I know that now. You don’t tempt fate you ignore it completely. During the two months she was gone in the Italian Islands I walked the streets of the city with my back blind. I was matching the steps of my soloist wife at the other end of the world. At times I found myself moving to her own ambling, driven gait, round on the heels, nearly race-walking, breasts forward in guidance, my life’s ballasts. I mimicked her high, but never shrill voice. I felt the blush of anger on rise on my neck. I could even see myself, maddeningly centred as usual, hunched at the far end of our empty too large apartment, sipping easy liquor.” The path of matrimony is not straightforward: the ‘blind alleys’ are emblematic of unseen eventualities such as temporal separation which Park is enduring. Henry Park’s attempts to imitate his American wife surmise that their marriage is grounded on insincerity. Park is not genuine with his wife and himself. He strives to emulate Americanness with the aim of matching his wife which backfires eventually. Striving to change himself from Korean to American is futile for it does not supplement any value to their matrimony.