The Mobility of Identity: The Cosmopolitan Vision in Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life

Abstract

Chang-rae Lee, a contemporary Korean-American writer, is renowned in the literary world for his rich imagination, delicate emotional expression, unique transcultural perspective and idiosyncratic narrative technique. He is one of the representatives who succeeds in transcending the classical paradigm of ethnic literature. Cosmopolitanism stems from ancient Greek philosophy, further developing in the age of Enlightenment and thriving in the era of globalization. Taking close reading as the primary methodology and cosmopolitanism as the major theoretical framework, this research attempts to provide a multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary and in-depth interpretation of Lee’s A Gesture Life, and finds that Lee has expressed his ideal vision that rejects the essentialist paradigm of unchanging cultural identity and upholds cosmopolitanism which embraces cultural diversity and heterogeneity. Additionally, through the depiction of cosmopolitan community, Lee has expressed his expectation for peaceful coexistence, communal solidarity, and mutual assistance among various ethnicities, and he has visualized a picture that different ethnic groups engage in transcultural communication in a harmonious way. In conclusion, A Gesture Life has widened the boundaries of Korean-American literature, and the cosmopolitan vision in the text has contributed to the development and prosperity of American ethnic literature.