‘NATIVE SPEAKER’, A NOVEL IMBUED WITH EXISTENTIAL DICHOTOMIES EMBODIED BY VIBRANT CHARACTERS
‘NATIVE SPEAKER’, A NOVEL IMBUED WITH EXISTENTIAL DICHOTOMIES EMBODIED BY VIBRANT CHARACTERS

Summary/Abstract: The present paper is meant to address issues like embarking on a journey for self-discovery, reconciling one’s past and present, assessing and reassessing identity in terms of ethnicity and cultural assimilation. Furthermore, I underscore that Chang-rae Lee’s novel projects characters who are torn between emotional deflation and expansion, in the middle of an increasingly fragmentary narrative, therefore ‘Native Speaker’ appeals to me as a literary work inviting readers to delve into a realm of thorny issues relative to alienation and identity crises. By the same token, I maintain that we can also approach the novel in terms of its seemingly challenging language underlying a deafening silence, and of its convincingly puzzled out plot, infused with all kinds of incongruities akin to the XXth century urban jungle behaviour.

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