Desire for Symbolic Whiteness in A Gesture Life

This essay explores the psychodynamics of desire for whiteness in Chang-rae Lees A Gesture Life, referencing Girards notion of mimetic desire and Seshadri-Crookess conceptualization of whiteness as master signifier of race. I read Hatas failed relationship with Mary in the American story as significant as his love for Kkutaeh in the Asian story to suggest that Hatas subjectivity is determined by the overlap of Japanese identity and symbolic whiteness. The narratives gesture of saving Kkutaeh from abjection is highly problematic in this regard. Her superior class position puts her alongside with Captain Ono, granting her symbolic whiteness. Mary represents the mythologized wholeness of being in Hatas racial imaginary, sustaining his desire for whiteness as power. Regarding Sunny, I examine how the narrative initially posits her blackness as the binary opposition to whiteness, but in the end makes her conform to the logic of whiteness mainly through middle-class domesticity.이 논문은 2015년도 서울시립대학교 교내학술연구비에 의해 지원되었음