Alaysis of Krys Lee's "Drifting House"
Jaerin Lee
2 May 2013
Alaysis of krys Lee 's "Drifting house"
In “A Temporary Marriage” which is the latest story in chronicle order, author depicted Korean immigrants and their life with Okja as the central figure. She wants to change, but even until the end of the story, Ok-ja cannot truly extricate herself from her previous life, her past.
“Mrs. Shin!” A distant voice tried to reach her, but she was beyond reaching. ······ But even as he reached for Mrs. Shin, my darling, my love, her wounded body continued its ancient song.(23) In this passage, we could found that she delights in inflicted pain and is still called Mrs. Shin until the end. Throughout the book, almost all of characters are haunted by past memories. And they never seemed to be free from past. There are more clear images that the past haunting the present in the second story “At the Edge of The World”. It explores a theme that the significant past memories are influencing present. Author is describing another broken immigrant family in America, or the imperfectly constructed one, the ‘hero’ the precocious Mark Lee, who lives with his mother and second father. Although the narrator is Mark Lee, this is mainly about his father’s story told in his son’s eyes. His father, Ra Choe Cheol refuses to forget the past and dwells in it, culminating in his gut by Chanhee’s mother. He thinks of his life as going nowhere, just pretending it is going somewhere, possibly because he is always looking backward, not onward. (34)
Mark and Mark’s mother detests this, as the attitude reminds the mother of her memories that she would like to forget/ thinks it impractical and Mark thinks is taking his father away from him. The contrast between father and mother is striking in their different outlook of their past and present lives. Through Mark, his disillusionment with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, his inability to forget his brother, his doubts of the drive that is the
2 May 2013
Alaysis of krys Lee 's "Drifting house"
In “A Temporary Marriage” which is the latest story in chronicle order, author depicted Korean immigrants and their life with Okja as the central figure. She wants to change, but even until the end of the story, Ok-ja cannot truly extricate herself from her previous life, her past.
“Mrs. Shin!” A distant voice tried to reach her, but she was beyond reaching. ······ But even as he reached for Mrs. Shin, my darling, my love, her wounded body continued its ancient song.(23) In this passage, we could found that she delights in inflicted pain and is still called Mrs. Shin until the end. Throughout the book, almost all of characters are haunted by past memories. And they never seemed to be free from past. There are more clear images that the past haunting the present in the second story “At the Edge of The World”. It explores a theme that the significant past memories are influencing present. Author is describing another broken immigrant family in America, or the imperfectly constructed one, the ‘hero’ the precocious Mark Lee, who lives with his mother and second father. Although the narrator is Mark Lee, this is mainly about his father’s story told in his son’s eyes. His father, Ra Choe Cheol refuses to forget the past and dwells in it, culminating in his gut by Chanhee’s mother. He thinks of his life as going nowhere, just pretending it is going somewhere, possibly because he is always looking backward, not onward. (34)
Mark and Mark’s mother detests this, as the attitude reminds the mother of her memories that she would like to forget/ thinks it impractical and Mark thinks is taking his father away from him. The contrast between father and mother is striking in their different outlook of their past and present lives. Through Mark, his disillusionment with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il, his inability to forget his brother, his doubts of the drive that is the