American Literature#12/ Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story/ Lover as an Offensive Intruder

Lover as an Offensive Intruder

             We see SNS flooding with confessions of loneliness. We constantly blame the cut-throat competition, “the system”, “something out there” (whatever “something out there is) to have driven people inhumane and incredulous. In all, we find the cause of their aloofness from the other, longing for a perfect relationship with an ideal man/ woman.

             But at the same time, we are extremely offended when someone intrudes into “our” sense of sphere. A nation-wide example would be xenophobia prevalent in any country, multi-ethnical or homogeneous. On a smaller scale, it would be increasing inclusiveness of sexual harassment. In the status quo, European Union now has leaders with populist and xenophobic support, while modern democracies are filled with extremely sensitive women. Republic of Korea even passed a bill to illegalize “perverted staring” by including it in legal scope of sexual harassment.

             These conflicting expectations towards an ideal life bear too much burden for our ideal, imaginary partners. So our ideal friend/ companion should be someone who is trustworthy enough so that we can let him of her discover our deepest, darkest side, but at the same time be respectful towards our sphere. Is this possible? Is the concurrence of complete affection and mutual independence plausible? If not, a truthful relationship would necessitate significant alteration in the existence or characteristics of the individuals involved in it.

             “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” is a depiction of modern individuals exerting each other at the verge of true relationship, thus alienating themselves from the others and regressing to autistic attitudes. This story answers the question above, if a true relationship solely with happiness but not pain and conflict would ever be possible. The answer from the story reads no, and it can be observed by dividing the beings we confront into three parties.

             The simplest dividing line of the beings we face would be between humans and objects. Objects are obviously not alive, and especially enable themselves to be used in any general contexts. This phenomenon is even more apparent nowadays. Because the objects, or to be more precise, products, are mass-produced and mass-consumed, there is no distinctiveness in the objects we use. It can be used by anyone other than myself, thus showing the fact that the relationship between the object and I is typical and superficial.

             Another characteristic inherent in objects is that the pursuit by jouissance is one-directional in its relationship with the user. The object lacks the ability to go for its jouissance, it is sexually castrated being. The user, in contrast, is the only one who takes advantage of the object and enjoys an autistic orgasm. In the sense that the user who solely resorts to such enjoyment fails to make a mature relationship with other individuals indicate that the user is inherently fetishistic and obsessed with childish preference that only satisfies low dimensional needs.

             In “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” there are yuppies, professional and young, who “most…..were divorced.” They have no place to go except for the expensive bars and “white-washed apartments.” They eat “evening meals in radar ranges” while “TV chuckles quietly.” All of these commercial products bear no special meaning to the users. Not only that, the yuppies go through this everlasting circulation of banality, failing to meet anything but these objects and fellow coworkers, bearing a strong similarity,

             The confrontation between coworkers, or people of similar social status and identical dilemmas might function as a defense against the argument that the yuppies in “Sarah Cole” are not autistic or fetishistic. They might not be fetishistic in such sense, but they are autistic and narcissistic. When a person loves the other that bears a similar characteristic as him, and feels affectionate for the similarity he finds in the other, the relationship is more of self-love than true love of others. If a person finds comfort in the similarity, then what significance does the similar other possess? How is it different from finding comfort of one being himself?

             Here is the place when the concept of neighbor kicks in. Loving oneself is never difficult, but loving one another is extremely challenging. Such is the reason why Freud addresses the difficulty to “love thy neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18) in his book Civilization and its Discontents. A neighbor is inherently a being that is outside the rule of one’s family. This is not significant to a subject, but when this neighbor with an inherent difference lives close, the existence of the neighbor becomes menacing. In short, a neighbor is a complete other that has little similarity and is unavoidable.

             There is only one neighbor that the protagonist meets in “Sarah Cole.” Protagonist Ronald meets Sarah Cole and engages into an intact relationship. Nonetheless, the effort that Ronald puts is to extract Sarah from her life and place her in his context. He tries to “draw her forward from the context of her life and place her, as if she were an object, into the context of mine.” This is more of an action of self-defense than of aggression. Because Ronald’s relationships were restricted to materials and people similar to him, he had to treat her as an object, so that he could maintain who he was. This is shown when Ronald rejects to engage in sexual intercourse in Sarah Cole’s house but does in his house. Before Sarah Cole, all sexual actions were either materialism or masturbation (for he has sex with people similar to him), while that with Sarah Cole necessitated the interchange of Sarah Cole into an object of his context of life, so that he could comfortably enjoy his childish sense of jouissance.

             However, Ronald’s effort to capture Sarah Cole into his context fails. Sarah Cole’s presence forces him to change his lifestyle and attitude towards life, thus change himself. He is forced to visit parties that he would not if alone, meet people that he dare would not if alone. After the materialization of Sarah Cole fails, Ronald avoids her, such as not answering her phone calls or letting it ring five or six times before he picks it up. Although he wanted a deep relationship from the beginning of the story, and admits himself as being “shallow,” he refuses to engage in such, which makes the title of the story as not a true love story, but only “a type of love story.”

American Literature#11/ Fish Cheeks/ Hypocritical Cultural-relativism

Hypocritical Cultural-relativism in “Fish Cheek”

             We live in a society that upholds diversity and cultural-relativism on one hand and “political correctness” on another. The term “political correctness” consists of respect towards minority, and moral that treats every groups and individuals with egalitarian standards. In general, it is used to describe an attitude that respects every others’ opinions.

             Because respect towards other’s opinion has become the dominating hegemony, we always respect others’ opinions—at least outwardly. Many whites detest the “Japs”, “Chin-chins” and etcetera, but this idea rarely appears in the public sphere. Hence the new racial slur such as “Asians do math,” many hold discriminatory prejudice that trifle minorities, but such discourse is never done in a public discourse, where the minorities could fight back. Such backbiting occurs in a private level where only people with similar thoughts share what they think, and solidify their antagonism. The reason for this twofold phenomenon would be concurrence of hatred towards outsiders and WASP arrogance to maintain the “politically-correct” behavior.

             William Bennett was gravely criticized when he stated in his call-in show: “But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.” This might seem as a prominent example of proud American civic consciousness. However, I doubt whether the criticism was directed at the content of the statement or the context of the statement. If Bennett had stated this in a dinner table with conservatives, would he have been criticized so much? Many whites would actually agree to the statement, but also agree that it was not “politically correct”, content otherwise.

             Of course, I don’t mean to say that all racial slurs and hate speech should be out in the open and proudly bellowed—they are all repulsive. But what I wish to stress is that pretending to be “politically correct” when they are morally not is even more disgusting. People in mainstream maintain their imperialistic, colonialist behavior behind their mask of tolerance. If such behavior is existent in the public sphere, it can be attacked and overcome, but because it lurks in the private sphere, it has become stronger and more rooted.

             In such sense, Amy Tan’s work “Fish Cheeks” is an exemplar of how well-masked colonialism can impress even those who are suppressed. This story seems to follow a stereotypical college-essay fairytale; there is a personal yet sympathizing experience nicely wrapped by concluding axiom. Hence what the narrator’s mother says at the end of the story: “But inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame.” This is an ideal lesson for growing children of a culturally-relativistic era. But is it really?

             This extremely short narrative invests most of its 500 words into a foul description of Chinese food culture and the narrator’s shame about it. The description is done from Westerner’s perspective: “slimy rock cod with bulging eyes”, “[t]ofu, which looked like stacked wedges of robbery white sponges,” “squid…..resembled bicycle tires,” “my father……belched loudly.” In any westernized reader’s perspective, it is pretty repulsive. Disgust resulting from such description cannot be all covered up instantaneously by a short, hasty “words of wisdom.”

             Amy Tan’s story is more of a situational irony than an educational children’s story, even if not intended. No matter what Amy Tan felt after the Christmas Eve visit, the minister’s family (including Amy Tan’s crush) would leave disgusted by Chinese food culture. Despite the reputation as a post-colonial story “Fish Cheek” has, does the viewpoint of Westerners in the story ever change? Or does the readers’ perspective change? Hardly. Even if it does, it is only a superficial level of “The Chinese have some strange culture, and I don’t understand why the fuck they eat such disgusting stuff, but I’ll respect them anyway, because I am a proud, intellectual, politically correct American citizen.”

             The intention to justify assimilation or uphold respect towards others’ cultures (cultural-relativism) might have been kind, or to say, “politically correct.” But the actual function it does is to form a superficial level of respect, more of avoidance, to an unfamiliar culture. In a Zizekian sense, the Westerners are further alienating the Chinese by showing a gesture of acceptance. The Chinese fail to enter the Western pool of culture as a respectful, mature culture but as weird, queer lifestyle. Of course, Amy Tan’s story is politically correct, but the actual meaning that it delivers isn’t. The respect in Amy Tan’s story reflects more Western arrogance (“We, the civilized, accept your barbarism”) than true alienation that outsiders face.



Comments:

Lee Hyunseok: Interesting reflection upon individual plus society. But along the flow or your points, I wonder that although problematic assertions relating to races do now always reflect public but only some people in dominant position. Isn't it so dangerous since those are often influential and power-speaking? 

Han Jonghyun: A very impressive start. I was very surprised by how you have started writing this reflection relating to the general society. However, some ideas you have mentioned seem pretty vague that I cannot fully understand what you are saying. Furthermore, I want to question you that Amy Tan's Fish Cheek does not represent the westerner's view of the Chinese food culture, but rather Amy Tan's personal opinions. I believe that in this "society that upholds diversity and multi-cultralism", the westerners are not so hostile.