War-trauma and the Failure of Franklin Hata’s Self-masking in A Gesture Life
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This article examines the argument that the protagonist Franklin Hata’s choices in crisis, as a Korean Japanese American, cannot be recognized only as “passing” or becoming a model minority for his welfare. For this purpose, we presume that Hata’s war-trauma involving the Korean comfort woman Kkutaeh’s gang-rape and brutal death at the hands of Japanese soldiers in the Pacific War has caused him to suffer from PTSDs, such as hypochondria, amnesia, and haunting vision of his beloved Kkutaeh. Hata’s abnormal psychology will be closely examined from a Freudian viewpoint. The findings can be summed up as follows: First, Hata’s war-trauma cannot be easily overcome due to its severity. Second, this trauma causes Hata to fail in both parenthood and love, as revealed through the failure of Hata’s gestural life as a model minority; all his efforts to hide painful memories are useless. In the Freudian perspective, Hata’s painful memories wounded his psychic organ and repeatedly reinjure him whenever he faces reminders of the traumatic events. Here, one of the reminders is his adopted daughter Sunny. That is, his obsession with success and masquerade as a good man cannot be considered as passing, model minority complex, or gestural life, as other critics have suggested; his efforts to become a model minority or live a gestural life happen after he already experienced as an imperial citizen and model minority in Japan.
Abstract
This article examines the argument that the protagonist Franklin Hata’s choices in crisis, as a Korean Japanese American, cannot be recognized only as “passing” or becoming a model minority for his welfare. For this purpose, we presume that Hata’s war-trauma involving the Korean comfort woman Kkutaeh’s gang-rape and brutal death at the hands of Japanese soldiers in the Pacific War has caused him to suffer from PTSDs, such as hypochondria, amnesia, and haunting vision of his beloved Kkutaeh. Hata’s abnormal psychology will be closely examined from a Freudian viewpoint. The findings can be summed up as follows: First, Hata’s war-trauma cannot be easily overcome due to its severity. Second, this trauma causes Hata to fail in both parenthood and love, as revealed through the failure of Hata’s gestural life as a model minority; all his efforts to hide painful memories are useless. In the Freudian perspective, Hata’s painful memories wounded his psychic organ and repeatedly reinjure him whenever he faces reminders of the traumatic events. Here, one of the reminders is his adopted daughter Sunny. That is, his obsession with success and masquerade as a good man cannot be considered as passing, model minority complex, or gestural life, as other critics have suggested; his efforts to become a model minority or live a gestural life happen after he already experienced as an imperial citizen and model minority in Japan.
참고문헌 (18)
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