자기 은폐를 통한 자기 확인: 이창래의 『원어민』과 수키 김의 『통역자』를 중심으로

Abstract

Heekyung NahThis study discusses the fundamental condition which causes the confusion of identity for the second-generation Korean-American protagonists in Chang-Rae Lee's Native Speaker and Suki Kim's The Interpreter. Most critical approaches examining the identity problem of the second-generation Asian-American characters explain how they get frustrated by the cultural conflicts between their ethnic heritage and 'American' culture of the white people. Such a critical approach might be limited in delineating only the surface aspects of the identity confusion of the second-generation Asian-Americans. This paper attempts to explore the psychological process in which Henry Park and Suzy Park, respectively the main characters of Native Speaker and The Interpreter, become conscious of the imbalance of cultural power which is engendered by the physical dissimilarities between the white majority and themselves. The instability of selfhood takes place as a general phenomenon in any human relationship when one feels inferiority of power or when one feels he is excluded from the stronger. Yet the identity confusion of the second-generation Korean Americans in the two novels is distinctively caused by the inequality of cultural power intrinsically involved in their physical dissimilarity from the Caucasian majority. White Americans perceive the 'different' faces and color of skin of Asian Americans as a sign which indicates 'inferior' cultural power. Such perception of white people involves a kind of discrimination against, or disregard of, the individuality of Asian Americans. In their attempt to get over such a painful social reality, the two Korean-American protagonists reach self-recognition, incomplete may it be, first by assuming self-concealment and then by abandoning it.