Relationships in Chang-rae Lee's "A Gesture Life"

In Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life, Doc Hata and his adopted daughter, Sunny, have a tumultuous relationship throughout her maturation. Chang-rae Lee uses the two elements of fire and water to symbolize the personalities of Sunny and Doc, respectively, as well as their relationship. Since fire and water, being opposing forces, can still exist side by side, the fiery and aquatic characteristics that are given to Sunny and Doc allow the reader to anticipate the eventual possibility of peaceful coexistence between the two individuals.

In the opening chapters of A Gesture Life, Chang-rae Lee introduces the link between Doc Hata and water when the narrator describes in detail his experience in his swimming pool, and his natural acclimatization to the water: "So now I begin my swim the way I always do, taking a shallow dive from the far side and gliding underwater for much of the first length" (Lee 22). Doc Hata obviously makes a habit of swimming and feels very comfortable in the water. Although he has a disorienting experience in his pool, he rips off his goggles, which cause blurred vision and symbolize his questionable perceptions, and is able to see that he is at home (Lee 22).

Doc Hata is not associated with water only because he enjoys swimming. He also exhibits some characteristics that one would normally attribute to water. In Asian philosophy, water is associated with the Yin, which is characterized as wet, passive, cold, and quiet (Cristescu) - all of which are found in Doc Hata's personality and lifestyle. He is stoic, and allows things to happen around him without even bothering to change them. The best example here is that, on several occasions, he is given the opportunity to put K out of her misery, but he is unwilling to take any action to do so. In Bedley Run he often lacks emotions and appears cold, not seeming to be upset over the two relationships in his life that become spoiled - his relationships to Sunny and Mary Burns. He is also very quiet, and does not say or do anything to draw attention to himself. Even when officer Como harasses Sunny on the street in front of his shop, Doc Hata can only watch and listen: "I felt I was witnessing a staged accident" (Lee 85).

The most important characteristic that he shares with the element is that of being able to change form in order to accommodate anything. If someone puts a waterproof box into a pool, the box does not push the water down as it sinks, the water merely takes it in and fills up the area around it. Water conforms to fit into any shape and has the ability to form around any shape.

In human terms, the water is an assenting force, just as Doc Hata is an assenting human being. Throughout the book, he is forming himself around other people. In the Japanese army, among other places, he pretends to be Japanese instead of Korean so that he will be accepted. In Bedley Run he continues to form himself around society by buying the "perfect" house in the "perfect" neighborhood, and even changing his name from Jiro Kurohata to Franklin Hata so that nobody will question his conformity into American society. Mary Burns is one of few who actually confronts Doc Hata and accuses him of being too congenial. In her case, she is upset about the manner in which he deals with Sunny, but later in the confrontation she becomes enraged because he will not even argue with her: " 'For goodness sake, Franklin, you don't always have to assent!' she said, her voice suddenly rising" (Lee 60).

In opposition to Doc Hata, Sunny is fiery in character, and even though Chang-rae Lee does not give symbolic significance to her name, upon reading the novel, one can ascertain that her name is indicative of her personality. Though Chang-rae Lee never portrays Sunny as a pyromaniac to foil Doc's aquaphilia, she is often busy sunbathing while Doc Hata swims. In Asian philosophy, Sunny would represent the Yang side of life, which is the side associated closely with fire and the Sun. Heat, sound, and activity all characterize the Yang (Cristescu), as well as Sunny Hata. Where Doc Hata is quiet and accustomed to solitude, Sunny often surrounds herself with activity and friends, and she lives in one perpetual party while staying at Jimmy Gizzi's house (Lee 101). Sunny is also loud in contrast to Doc, who is soft-spoken.

In contradiction to Doc's passive water attributes, Sunny is fiery and often creates a path of destruction - moving obstacles out of her way instead of conforming to them. She is slightly belligerent and willing to stand up to people. She even provokes a verbal and minutely physical fight between herself and Officer Como outside of Doc's store (Lee 85-90). Sunny does not consent as Doc does, but she tries to burn down the opposition. She works her way up to a managerial position in a department store, and goes from practically living on the streets to living in the upper-class section of Ebbington.

Unlike water, which does not need anything to survive, fire does require some aid, such as oxygen, to prolong its endurance. Sunny, too, occasionally requires assistance in order to survive. For instance, if Doc had not helped Sunny get an abortion, she may not have been able to manage a career and her child, whose father, according to Doc, is "a longtime drug addict" and "has abandoned her" (Lee 342). Besides that, Doc Hata tells Doctor Anastasia that Sunny "barely finished high school" and "doesn't have a job" (Lee 342), so if she had not had an abortion, which was only possible with the help of Doc Hata, then she would have been in an even worse situation.

In society, in general, Doc and Sunny express their elemental qualities, but nowhere are these qualities more apparent than when they are juxtaposed. While Sunny and Doc inhabit the same space, they have constant disputes, some verbal and some silent. One common article of disagreement is the piano that Sunny used to play as a child. Doc does not want to sell the piano in the hopes that Sunny will play it once again. However, Sunny refuses to play it, because it was never what she wanted to do, but what Doc wanted her to do. Fire does not like to be pushed around, and is very difficult to control, as is exhibited by Sunny's determination.

Throughout Sunny's childhood, she and Doc are never really a family. Doc is more of a babysitter to her than he is a father. Sunny always resents the lack of a familial relationship and often bolts at the prospect of family ties, as is apparent in her relationship to Mary Burns. Just as Sunny bolts from the parental figure, a "firelog cracks sharply in the family room" just before the fire. Keeping Sunny's resistance of her "family," it is fitting that it is fire that destroys the family room of Doc's house (Lee 67), a house that represents the family that never lived there, and a house Sunny does not like from the first day she is brought to Bedley Run.

Doc acts as the water, trying to calm down Sunny's fire, but he cannot extinguish the flames, and his water only makes the fire spit and sizzle more. Therefore, when the water ceases trying to put out the fire, the two elements are able to enjoy one another's company. When Sunny is young, Doc treats her well because he feels obligated to do so. After she moves out and builds a life of her own, Doc begins to help Sunny and Thomas out because he genuinely enjoys doing so, and he grows to love Thomas as one loves a grandchild, though initially he is startled by his feelings:

And then, surprisingly, I was caught off guard by my own stirring, at least the sudden thrum-thrum in my chest as I shook his [Thomas'] small hand goodbye, which was a sensation one might usually describe as both sweet and bitter but to me was also squarely, terribly rueful, as I realized how brief and few my times with him might be in future days. It seems curious, all these years alone and my rarely thinking twice of the larger questions, perhaps save certain reconsiderations in the last few weeks, but now the simple padding touch of a boy's fingers seemed to have the force of a thousand pulling hands. It was everything I could do to heed his mother's unspoken (though readily clear) wishes and keep a dignified face and uneventfully leave him until our next time together, which was as yet unarranged. (Lee 219)

Sunny realizes that Doc has grown fond of Thomas, and that he is not merely buying things for them to make up for anything he did wrong in Sunny's life. Because Doc does not try to smother Sunny, they are able to get along. Indeed, towards the end of the novel, around the time of Doc and Sunny's reconciliation, Doc characteristics shift to resemble oxygen rather than water. As he ages, he swims less and less, "as I've not felt like swimming much" (Lee 347). He becomes less smothering, and even rescues Thomas from drowning. After he "betrays" the water by saving his grandson, Sunny warms up to him, her "fire" benefiting from his "oxygen" instead of reacting to his "water."

However, in her youth, Doc did smother her, if unintentionally, just as he almost smothers his fire when burning old checks and bank statements: "Soon enough the fire is burning fiercely with the sheaves of papers, as too much goes in at once, the flames nearly dying out from the smothering; but then, in a combustive rush they begin leaping up and out..." (25). Sunny responds to Doc in the same way that the fire does - when he smothers her, she almost allows it, but then suddenly she gets a spark of anger and flares up against him, eventually leaving Bedley Run ("leaping up and out") for thirteen years.

Despite the fact that the author refuses to admit to a symbolic interpretation Sunny's name, and does not mention the significance of Doc Hata's special relationship with water, it is hard to refute the fact that there is an overwhelming amount of textual evidence to support the parallel between the two characters and the elements. It is also fitting that they represent the elements as they are described in Asian spirituality, since they are the only Asian characters in the Bedley Run setting, and since Chang-rae Lee himself is Asian. Considering the interaction between Sunny and Doc throughout the novel, it is fitting that they represent fire and water, or yin and yang, chaotically balancing each other until both must surrender and make peace.

Works Cited

Cristescu, Horia. "Yin and Yang." SivaSakti.com. 2001-2002. 21 Mar. 2003. .

Lee, Chang-rae. A Gesture Life. New York: Riverhead books, 1999.