53 pages • 1 hour read
Chang-rae LeeA Gesture Life
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-6
Chapter 4 Summary
At the hospital, Hata befriends a shy, sweet candy striper named Veronica. The teenager brings Hata a selection of books and magazines, making friendly conversation and quietly reading together. Veronica’s father was a police chief that died during her infancy, and her mother, Officer Como, became a Bedley Run police officer after Hata called the station to vouch for her. In the years after, Officer Como would double-park in front of Sunny Medical Supply to warn off vandals. Hata is pleased to see how Veronica grew into a fine young woman without a father.
Though the doctor is sure that Hata has recovered, Hata feels he has shingles. Hata doesn’t want to express discomfort because he likes Veronica’s company. He finds this desire strange—he has always been a solitary person. Though Hata enjoys the company of others, he felt most himself when alone. He acknowledges that many people, including Mary, identify themselves through a filter of associations. Hata then admits that he had to relinquish his ties from the shared sacrifice of wartime culture for the relative freedoms of civilian American life.
Veronica describes how beautiful people are often the most distant, and Hata agrees—having dealt with the complications of Sunny’s beauty. He remembers the early indications of Mary’s presence disturbing Sunny. Sunny had begun practicing on the piano fervently and rudely. Mary would complement her skills, but Hata found her performances shaming. Hata was overgenerous with Sunny, like most Japanese fathers, but now feels he should have exercised more sternness. He remembers that he was a difficult child. Ethnically Korean, Hata’s family spoke and lived as Japanese. When he scored high on achievement tests, Hata began attending a special school and was adopted by a well-to-do childless couple from whom he took the surname “Kurohata,” now shortened. He remembers his gratefulness not to them, but to the circumstances, and his expectation that Sunny would feel the same to live in America. He realizes his errors in adopting her—he desired to have a child so badly that he gave bribes and insisted on having a daughter.
One night, Hata decides to visit the Hickey’s son. Seeing Patrick makes Hata remember how a doctor during the war pulled apart the ribs of a Burmese captive to demonstrate how to hand-massage a heart. He wonders if he could successfully perform the technique on Patrick if his heart stopped. When Officer Como arrives to pick up Veronica, she speaks of Veronica’s wide-eyed nature. Hata wonders if he too sees the world as a widely shaped fantasy, as it actually is, or as something in between. Hata had not told Veronica that he is to be discharged the next morning. She is upset when she learns and leaves abruptly. Officer Como mentions that Sunny manages a store at the mall, and that she has seen pictures of Sunny’s son.
Chapter 5 Summary
Hata recalls how hard Sunny was on Officer Como. Sunny would provoke Officer Como by sitting on her cruiser’s hood while smoking.
Hata flashes back to one incident when Sunny was young. Officer Como asks Sunny to get off the car and come over to her. Sunny slowly slides off the car and drops her cigarette. Though Sunny never curses and has no vanity or pride, she is intimidatingly quiet and knows how to use her good looks. Officer Como confronts Sunny about her attitude and whereabouts, telling her that she is wasting herself and has things that many others don’t—brains, money, and good looks. Officer Como then reveals that Sunny drinks, does drugs, and stays out all night with sleazy men, mocking how tough and cool Sunny feels, and how scared her father must feel.
Though Hata watches from the store, he doesn’t interject. He finds it strange to have his daughter being publicly accosted while knowing it is completely warranted, and at the same time, wanting to shield her from criticism. Officer Como tells Sunny the whole town knows about her whereabouts, admonishing Sunny for spending time at Jimmy Gizzi’s house—a 25-year-old high school dropout and drug dealer. Sunny glances at Hata, uncomfortable that he can hear. Hata is alarmed and hurt that Sunny spends time with a man she doesn’t care to defend.
When Officer Como mentions what Jimmy says about Sunny, Sunny curses her. Officer Como then throws Sunny’s bicycle to the ground, calling Sunny a little bitch. Hata finally runs out of the store, accosting the officer for speaking to his daughter that way and for making false accusations. Out of deference, Officer Como apologizes and leaves. Back in the store, Hata confronts Sunny about her whereabouts and asks what she does at Jimmy’s house, if she is having sex or is in love, and what she is seeking. Sunny retorts that she doesn’t want Hata’s concern—all he cares about is his reputation in the snotty town, telling him that he makes “a whole life out of gestures and politeness” (94). Sunny tells Hata that everyone sees him as a “good charlie”—“You burden with your generosity. So even when I’m being troublesome, they can’t bear to upset you” (95). Hata remembers Mary’s last words to her—that he tries too hard, as if it is his sworn duty to love him. When Hata forbids Sunny from sleeping at Jimmy’s house, she says she will sleep where she wants. Angry, Hata tells Sunny she can’t live in his house if she is set on degrading herself. Turning to leave, Sunny replies coolly and without remorse: “I don’t need you […] I never needed you. I don’t know why, but you needed me.” (96).
Chapter 6 Summary
After the fight, Hata does not see Sunny for three weeks. He checks in with her school and her attendance is satisfactory. Officer Como is the only one who knows Sunny left, and she keeps an eye out for her. One evening, Hata drives towards the Gizzi house. It is easy to spot; the lights are on and music is playing loudly. Despite the decrepit scent, the house has a strange festivity reminiscent of Sunny’s English novels. Hata figures any house rife with human activity has an upper hand above his unsettlingly spacious and silent home. Hata heads into the house, searching for Sunny. Everyone seems to be heavily drugged, and the house is crowded with ethnically diverse people dancing and swaying—a rare sight in the mostly white Bedley Run. There are very few women, and most people are twice Sunny’s age. As he heads towards the bedrooms, Hata imagines how he would feel if he witnessed Sunny being intimate with a man, if he ought to burn with indignation or stand back in prideful melancholy, and if the feelings would be different if she was his own blood.
Hata heads into a bedroom and sees a couple having sex. Though the woman is not Sunny, he imagines that it is, calling her name weakly. The woman notices him, gesturing to him to hold her hand. When the lights start to flicker, a disoriented Hata stumbles out of the house to escape what seems like a jangle of limbs spinning out of control. Hata then falls into a flashback of his first week of service in Singapore during the Pacific War. Known then as Jiro, Hata is a medic out drinking with his mates. They head to a clubhouse, where a new batch of prostitutes are arriving. They find a naked, dead, Korean girl fallen from the second floor. He and his mates bind her body in a bag and head inside. Hata wanders upstairs, but as usual, isn’t interested in the new girls. He passes the line when a girl with legs stained with blood runs out. Hata catches her automatically. She asks him to let her go and is surprised when he replies in her language that there is no place for her to go. The group captain then emerges from the room to take her back, and she calls Hata O-ppah—a nickname for an older brother.
Hata is thinking of that girl as he walks back into the Gizzi house. He finds Sunny in a room above the garage, dancing half naked for Jimmy Gizzi and a man named Linc. Sunny is touching herself and swaying suggestively when Linc approaches her and starts to kiss her body. Jimmy watches as Sunny starts laughing maniacally. At that moment, Hata wishes she wasn’t his kin. He grimly descends, his blood growing cold.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters develop one of the novel’s major themes—a life of gestures. Hata survives on acceptance from others by being kind, helpful, and doing favors at every chance. When Officer Como confronts Sunny about her inappropriate behavior and habits, Sunny bluntly accuses Hata of only caring about his reputation and burdening others with his kindness so that every person is indebted to him. In the case of Officer Como, Hata vouched for her job after her husband’s death, after which, she takes the time to scare off vandals from his store.
In these chapters, Sunny makes the point that it was never she who needed Hata, but Hata that needed her, foreshadowing that Sunny is Hata’s penance for harming K. Sunny’s actions are a rebellion of Hata’s complete assent to whatever she desires. The similarity of the strange festivity of Jimmy Gizzi’s house and Sunny’s English novels, and its stark contrast with the emptiness of Hata’s home hints at what Sunny is running from and what she is searching for.
Hata also provides the first glimpse into his childhood and time in the war. He was originally Korean—his parents took lengths to ensure Hata assimilated into Japanese society and completely erased any trace of being Korean. At a young age, Hata is adopted by the prominent Japanese Kurohata family, and was afterwards recruited to the war. Hata compares how he was a difficult child with Sunny’s childhood, remembering how he was always grateful not to his adoptive parents but of the circumstances in general, and his expectation that Sunny would be the same. It is almost as if Hata’s entire life of gestures is an act of gratitude to the universe for being accepted and allowed to fit into every new situation—first in Japan as a child and in suburban New York after the war.
Hata’s flashbacks develop the theme of identity erasure. As a child, his parents gave him a Japanese name—Jiro—and fully immersed him in Japanese life to erase any trace of being Korean. As an adult, Hata renames himself Franklin and makes a life for himself in suburban New York by completely assimilating to the local lifestyle. Hata reflects on the way some people understand themselves through associations with others, and that he had to rid himself of his associations and ties of shared sacrifice during the war in order to truly assimilate in America. His memory of the Korean prostitute during the war is juxtaposed with the scene of Sunny dancing suggestively, indicating a connection between his treatment and perception of Sunny and his memories of this girl.
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By Chang-rae Lee
