Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee

Franklin Hata, the main character of A Gesture Life is a Japanese immigrant of Korean descent who seems to lead a peaceful life in a small American city but he is in fact haunted by his past as a medic in the Japanese army during World War II, by the crimes and atrocities per...

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Main Author: Michaël Taugis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Rennes 2015-07-01
Series:Revue LISA
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/8781
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author Michaël Taugis
author_facet Michaël Taugis
author_sort Michaël Taugis
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description Franklin Hata, the main character of A Gesture Life is a Japanese immigrant of Korean descent who seems to lead a peaceful life in a small American city but he is in fact haunted by his past as a medic in the Japanese army during World War II, by the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by soldiers and officers. Although the past and the present appear to be poles apart in his experience, they are interwoven in the novel, through the imagery of water and fire in particular. This interweaving shows that, to certain extent, his past experience in the war re-enacts itself in the present and it reveals the recurrent fraudulence which undermines his relationships with the other characters. This re-enactment also underlines the character’s problematic position as an often passive bystander and voyeuristic witness confronted with what war exposes: humane evil and vulnerability.
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spelling doaj.art-bb0d85b248a74402a210b2359da597492024-02-13T14:36:51ZengPresses universitaires de RennesRevue LISA1762-61532015-07-0110.4000/lisa.8781Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae LeeMichaël TaugisFranklin Hata, the main character of A Gesture Life is a Japanese immigrant of Korean descent who seems to lead a peaceful life in a small American city but he is in fact haunted by his past as a medic in the Japanese army during World War II, by the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by soldiers and officers. Although the past and the present appear to be poles apart in his experience, they are interwoven in the novel, through the imagery of water and fire in particular. This interweaving shows that, to certain extent, his past experience in the war re-enacts itself in the present and it reveals the recurrent fraudulence which undermines his relationships with the other characters. This re-enactment also underlines the character’s problematic position as an often passive bystander and voyeuristic witness confronted with what war exposes: humane evil and vulnerability.https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/8781hybriditytestimonymemorywar crimesJapanese armyKorean-American literature
spellingShingle Michaël Taugis
Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
Revue LISA
hybridity
testimony
memory
war crimes
Japanese army
Korean-American literature
title Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
title_full Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
title_fullStr Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
title_full_unstemmed Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
title_short Mémoires métisses de la guerre dans A Gesture Life de Chang-rae Lee
title_sort memoires metisses de la guerre dans a gesture life de chang rae lee
topic hybridity
testimony
memory
war crimes
Japanese army
Korean-American literature
url https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/8781
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