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The American Heritage Dictionary describes infatuation as a “foolish, unreasoning, or extravagant passion or attraction.” In regards to social relationships, infatuation may just be the synonym for a pure and innocent attraction to someone. On the other hand, sometimes people may be infatuated for the wrong means. They may become unreasonably infatuated for another remote reason. Indeed when one looks at the character of Henry Park in Chang Rae Lee’s novel, Native Speaker, he exhibits a sense of infatuation attraction for his ex-spouse, Lelia. He describes her as the “Anglican goddess” (15) even though at times she is blatantly denigrating of him. Leila is not overwhelmingly grateful of Henry despite his surprise flight to Europe with the soul intention of just visiting her. Without gratitude, she says to Henry, “I’ll give you a story of your gaps. Girl is married to boy [and] boy makes girl crazy” (125). Surprisingly instead he is not hurt by her comments. Henry instead talks about how he tries incessantly to connect and be closer to Lelia. Believing smokers share a “secret tranquility” with each other, he tries to take up smoking so that he could have more in common with Lelia. The fact is Henry needs Lelia so excessively that even when she disserted him with a letter patronizing him listing that he is, “surreptitious, illegal alien, overrated, anti-romantic, stranger, follower, traitor, [and a] spy” (5) Henry does not understand Lelia’s intentions of divorcing. He instead, sympathizes saying the list only represents, “[her] terse communiqués from her moments of despair. For this reason, I never considered the thing mean.” (5). As one can see, Lelia’s intentions throughout the novel is very clear but Henry does not give up on her. When she left him he keeps a copy of the degrading letter next to his body in his wallet so it will be with him till his “death” (4)—showing how deeply he still wants Lelia. Thus, for some reason Henry will not let go of Lelia, his “goddess” (15). The question to ask now is why this infatuation? Why this infatuation when Lelia does not show the same degree of infatuation back? The fact is, Henry obsesses Lelia because she is the exact character he wants to be. As a character maturing, Henry has never been able to shape his own character. From birth, he has been forcefully taught by his father that he is uniquely Korean. When he dates a Caucasian girlfriend, the first thing his father said is “You don’t know nothing! This American girl, she nobody for you. She don’t know nothing about you. You Korean man. So so different” (74). As a child, his father teaches him that he is different from Americans. In the latter quote, his father pretty much noted that due to his nationality, he is physically and socially different; that’s why the American girls would not understand him. Taught that he is unique; Henry’s childhood could not evolve on its own. Always knowing that he is different he did not have the freedom to see if he was in fact different or not. As taught by his father, he is different. As a result, Henry matures into a man that is unsure of his status in the American society.
Approximate Word count = 2111
Approximate Pages = 8.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
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