Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

While waiting for Patterson, head administrator of Ivy Acres, Jerry comes across an animal show. It’s one he’s seen before about two lions, Red and Nero. Red is the “crusty old male lion” and dominant male of the pride (304). He is properly named Red because of the color of his mane. Nero is “a very large mature young male.” Nero comes into Red’s territory and makes himself a new candidate for king. They have a battle and Red is mauled and eventually dies. Nero is the new king. This show that Jerry is watching is very similar to the situation between him, Rita, and Richie, but with a different outcome. Jerry is Red, Richie is Nero, and the territory represents Rita.

Jerry and Red are both the older opponents in the struggle for the prize. Just as Red was the leader of the pride and the lair for a long time, Jerry and Rita were in a relationship for a long time. Red showed “his appreciation of the hunting prowess of his lionesses by serving them sexually whenever they are in heat and then spending the rest of his time power-dozing.” That is just like Jerry in the sense that he does what is told to do by Rita and nothing more. The only time he does something without being asked is when it benefits him.

When Nero comes to the territory, he “[makes] a show of himself as an electable new king.” He shows of that he is strong and young. Although Richie is not much younger than Jerry, he does show off his fortunes. He shows Rita that he is the better than Jerry as a partner for her. He shows off his mansion, his large property, and his many cars. When talking to Jerry, Richie confesses to him that he felt that he needed all his material fortunes to attract and keep a woman.

In the show, there is an unseen battle between Red and Nero. The battle is represented in the book as the tennis match. Richie and Jerry have a tennis match where if Richie wins, he gets Jerry’s ’67 Impala and Donnie and if Jerry wins, he gets Richie’s ’92 Ferrari. There is also the underlying incentive of Rita. There is the impression that the winner will win her affections. During the match Jerry gets injured just as Red did. This is where the two differ. The outcome of the lion’s tale is Red is mauled and eventually dies, being eaten by a pack of hyenas, making Nero the new leader of the territory. In the case of the novel, Jerry wins the material goods but the more important reward. He gets the Ferrari and keeps his car and Donnie. The more important prize is not for certain Jerry’s to claim. He goes to return the Ferrari and learns that Richie and Rita have broken up. With that new information, he goes to Rita’s and they begin to make love. Their relationship is not yet restored but there is the possibility.

The two stories have very similar ideas and events. Red and Jerry are the older leaders while Nero and Richie are the younger possible new leaders. In both cases they are fighting for something, whether it is land or love. The conclusions slightly differ in that Nero wins the land and Jerry wins the material possessions but not yet the love of Rita.

Mother Or Child

An interesting part of the plot so far in this book is the situation with Theresa and her family. The situation being Theresa is pregnant and being diagnosed with a cancerous or cancer-like disease. I just thought it was interesting because I started to wonder what I would decide to do if I had to choose between the life of an unborn child and my own life. So far Theresa has seemed to choose her child’s life over hers and wants to wait for her child to be born before taking any kind of treatment for her illness. Her fiancé Paul and Jerry seem to want Theresa to start treatment right away and worry about her life instead of the baby. At first this seemed like a cruel thing to say, but after thinking about it from the perspective of Paul and Jerry it seems pretty reasonable. To the men Theresa is real to them and already has life, but the baby is not. After seeing multiple doctors she seems to have accepted that there is a good chance that she will not start her treatment in time. She sort of shows this when she is talking to Jerry at the Dairy Queen and asks him to take care of Paul in case anything happens. I’m sure that making that kind of decision is different for women and men because of the baby actually developing in the woman. How Theresa handle this situation explains a lot about her character. Although it takes two people to create a child she chooses to exclude her fiancée in all of this. She does not tell Paul much about what happens to her and even tells her doctors not to tell him anything as well. Also she doesn’t even explain anything to her father who you would expect her to talk to even if their relationship isn’t the best. At first it seems that she is an independent person and wants to handle the situation on her own, but it sort of seems like she might already know the outcome if she chooses to have the baby before having her treatment and doesn’t want to worry her family. When Theresa and Jerry are at the Dairy Queen Jerry finally asks what is going on and tells Theresa he wants to be a part of what she’s going through and she seems to finally give in and explain to him her morning sickness and about her red blood cell count. After telling Jerry that she vomited blood that morning, Jerry tells her to call the doctor right then and there, but Theresa refuses saying she’s going to see another doctor soon anyway and the doctor was probably going to say the same thing as the rest of the doctors anyway. Theresa seems to have already accepted that there might be a chance she won’t be able to live too long after the baby is born if she can even make it that long. Jerry has finally confronted Theresa about her illness and the baby after leaving her alone for a while and I wonder if Paul will ever come out and confront this situation. It seems that Theresa is still in the early stages of her pregnancy so there is a chance she might end up giving up the baby in order to receive treatment. My prediction is that Theresa will have the baby and she’ll be able to survive too, just so that the book has a happy ending.

Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee is the story of a sixty-something year old man by the name of Jerry Battle. This novel focuses on many parts of Jerry’s life, most important to him being his relationships with his children, the family business, and his love of flying his own plane. Race is also a prevalent topic throughout the entire novel. Jerry, who is white, was married to an Asian woman named Daisy, before her death, and they had two children together, Theresa and Jack. After her death, Jerry begins to see another woman named Rita, who is Puerto Rican. Obviously, there are many race-related comments that can be made by Jerry, judging on his family alone, and he makes them numerous times throughout the novel. His general view of race in America is not unlike the view that many of us have and also struggle with: it’s the first thing he sees and he wishes it was not a factor, but it somehow always is.
Lee sums up Jerry’s thoughts on race in a passage on page 248: “[I]f a guy like me is always having to think twice when he’d rather not do so at all, what must that say about this existence of ours but that it restlessly defies out attempts at its capture, time and time again.” This is said in response to a stereotype that Asians are not as emotional as any other race and Jerry comments that he finds this to be untrue regarding the Asians he knows. Clearly, race is an issue at the forefront of Jerry’s concerns, as he describes being “hopelessly obsessed with race and difference, [like the rest of the world].” Jerry wants to be an open-minded, unbiased type of person, but there is still something he can’t quite shake.
It is through Jerry that Lee makes reference to how society as a whole views and reacts around race. Race should not be an issue, but for some reason, it constantly finds its way into daily conversation and situations. If this type of thinking continues, our society will never fulfill its potential and the society will be, for lack of a better word, worthless. Jerry wants to change his view of “fetishizing what’s not”, but it is engrained in just who Jerry Battle is, and Jerry is a personification of the problems we as a society face.
Lee tackles race from a drastically different perspective than any of the books previously discussed in class: through the eyes of a privileged white middle-class businessman. Much like today’s generation, there is a lack of emotional connection, the strong desire to accomplish, and the notion of avoidance that our society depends upon. Battle avoids confronting the emotional needs of his family and girlfriends. His daughter, perhaps in his shadow, avoids thinking about (and later acting on) her diagnosis of cancer; and his son avoids thinking about the impending implosion of the family business. The children have all the gadgets and toys at their disposal, similar to how one would someday describe our iPod and computer dependent generation. And as our society continues to progress, we are still bogged down with racism, seemingly never able to release ourselves from its hold. Although a novel from a drastically different standpoint, from the oppressor instead of the oppressed, it is interesting to see that not only is the oppressor aware, but also bothered by the notion of racism.

The character of Jerry Battle in the novel Aloft, by Chang –Rae Lee is one who desires to escape the fast-paced, changing world in order to be alone and to be in control of what happens around him. As he is getting older, it seems that he is in less and less control over what happens around him. Jerry’s story seems to be paralleled in the story of Sir Harold, a man traveling around the world in a hot air balloon. Both of these characters, men in the middle of their lives, take up a hobby that gets them out of the fast paced world for a while and into the air where they are alone, in order to gain control and escape, but they find out that this is an impossible task.

Jerry decides to buy a plane and take up flying. His main reason for doing this is because he has a strong desire to escape and disappear. The question is, however, what does Jerry want to escape from? Jerry states, “From up here, I can’t see the messy rest, none of the pedestrian, sea-level flotsam that surely blemishes our good scene” (3). Jerry wants to be in a world that’s his own, not one which has been tainted by humanity. From reading further into the novel, it is apparent that the world Jerry lives in is full of pain and conflict. With his daughter having Hodgkin’s disease while being pregnant, his friend attempting to commit suicide, and Rita leaving him for another man, Jerry wants to be in a place where he doesn’t have to be around these negative things. This escapism is paralleled within the story of Sir Harold. With Sir Harold being around the same age as Jerry and also taking up a similar hobby, it is no wonder why Jerry becomes slightly obsessed with his story. Jerry sees himself in Sir Harold. He sees a man who is stuck in the middle of his life with no where to go and simply wants to get away from everything and be in the air where nothing bothers him.

Another striking similarity between the stories of Sir Harold and Jerry Battle is that both of their lives are spinning out of control and they are left feeling helpless. In the novel, the placement of the story of Sir Harold comes around the time after Jerry finds out that his daughter has Hodgkin’s disease. The story is told while Jerry battles his ex girlfriend’s new boyfriend in a tennis match. Here, Jerry is seemingly overpowered by the elements of his age and lack of physical fitness. This is primarily where the story of Sir Harold is revealed. While Jerry battles Richard in a tennis match, Sir Harold battles the elements of the weather in his hot air balloon. Sir Harold, who thought that he had control over his hot air balloon quickly finds out that he is not match for the outside weather. This last part of the story seems to be symbolic of Jerry’s life. Jerry feels that he is losing the battle over his life and is losing the people in it. Jerry reads news on Sir Harold, which states, “… a grainy shot of Sir Harold’s deflated silver balloon afloat in the water. Another shot is of the damaged pod, one side of it crushed in like a half eaten whorl” (200). This balloon, which is symbolic of freedom and control, has been defeated by the elements. Much like Jerry’s life, which he feels he has lost control over, the balloon and Jerry (in the tennis match) have been defeated by stronger outside forces.

Jerry and Sir Harold, two middle aged white men, who both have the luxury to invest in the expensive hobby of flying, are strikingly similar in the lives they lead. While Sir Harold battles the weather and loses, Jerry battles Richard in a tennis match for his love, Rita. In the end, they both seem to lose what they were fighting for, and end up losing control over their lives, which is ironic, because all they really wanted to do was escape from the world and go to a place where they weren’t affected by the elements and the pain of losing people.

Jerry Battle, the main character of the book, who was around sixty years old, retired from his own company, Battle Brothers Brick & Mortar, which was established by his grandfather, and developed to a landscaping company by his father and uncles. Jerry was a kind of rich guy. He had got plenty of money, his own house, and even his own plane. It looks like this book all talked about an old guy’s retired life. So this book is kind of tasteless, isn’t it? 

How about let us imagine the life when people retire? People may still get up early in the morning, watch TV for an hour or two, then, water their plants outside the front door. They probably would take a walk in a warm afternoon, or have a cup of tea in the backyard. But after reading through the book a little bit I have found out this book was not just talking about an ordinary story about an old people’s life. From one point, I felt the author tried to express some unique ideas through Jerry’s emotionally change to display some phenomenon of the society. 

Although Jerry’s wife, Daisy Han, died very early, he still should have had reasons to satisfy with his old age. His overeducated daughter Theresa was engagement to her boyfriend Paul, and his son, Jack, had plans for expanding his original business. He accumulated himself more than enough wealth for retirement. Also, it looked like he always had female friends around him, no matter his ex-girlfriend, Rita, his coworker, Kelly, or even Terri, the woman he dated in a summer, no matter how close to him they were. But he was still lonely.   

When he sold his shares in his company he had not realized there was no place left for him to go. That was why the first paragraph in the first Chapter was mentioned “From up here, a half mile above the Earth, everything looks perfect to me.” While I was reading through the book, I was feeling Jerry hinted us from the first sentence that he perhaps wanted to escape from something. He liked to travel with his plane a lot, used to with Rita, but most time himself. When he flew aloft he thought he had left everything on the ground. He tried using his plane as the tool to release himself, but he did not realize that when the plane landed, he still needed to pick up whatever he had to bear, and whatever he had to face.  

It is helpless and contradictory, not only to Jerry, but also to most of the people in the world. People always tried to hide themselves and escape from reality. And to some of them, when they find out they have to face their situation, they can not even afford it.

In Chang-Rae Lee’s Aloft, Lee’s narrator is a wealthy, upper-class white man. This seems to break away from other ethnic writers because Lee writes from the perspective of a race that is not his own. Why does Lee do this? When Lee’s narrator is introduced to the readers, he is flying in a plane. There seems to be a parallel in Lee’s white narrator, Jerry, flying a plane and appearing to float away into the clouds. Perhaps Lee writes as a white narrator to show how Asian Americans have assimilated to white culture. Throughout the first portion of the novel, Lee examines several of the narrator’s family and romantic relationships and often times incorporated the diversity of the people in Jerry’s life. The novel does not evolve around ethnic or racial issues, but in subtle ways, the reader sees that Jerry makes comments on his level of acceptance and always seems to notice the differences in ethnicities. It appears that Lee feels there is a definite and unrealized separation between races and ethnicities.

Especially when discussing his relationships with his family, Jerry notes the differences in ethnicity. When he attends his daughter’s dinner party, Jerry comments on the multiracial identities of his children and family. Although Jerry seems to state the ethnicities of his family matter-of-factly, the fact that Jerry notices it at all seems to create an even greater emphasis. Why mention this at all? Maybe Jerry is like many Americans in feeling that merely noticing differences and stating that you accept those differences makes you a better person who is culturally well-rounded. However, even just noting differences appears to have the opposite effect.

Another example of Jerry’s false type of acceptance is the way in which he describes his romantic interests. Jerry seems to characterize both Rita and his first wife by their cultures. Jerry mentions that his first wife was Korean and his long-term girlfriend, Rita, is Hispanic. In the novel, Jerry seems very aware of the fact that he becomes involved in multiracial relationships. Especially when he meets Rita, the reader sees that Jerry is conscious of how other people view his relationships with women of different ethnic backgrounds. He becomes conscious of the other people viewing his interactions with Rita on the boat and then discusses how she becomes his nanny. This appears to be unimportant information. However, it appears to bother Jerry especially because Rita is Puerto Rican and he is white. In the novel, Jerry seems fascinated by women of other cultures. He seems to feel that he is a better person for accepting these women as his romantic interests.

In the beginning of the novel, Jerry is introduced as he is flying a plane. It seems that Lee is trying to comment on the fact that Jerry’s “whiteness” is floating away into invisibility. This is even more relevant since Lee, an Asian-American, is writing with a white narrator. Perhaps, Lee is criticizing assimilation in this instance. Why would Lee write with a white narrator when he knew that he would be questioned about it? It seems he wanted to make a statement that White seems to only want minorities stepping on their territory when it is beneficial to them. In other instances, it is either looked down upon or questioned. This also goes back to the fact that Asian-Americans were assimilated into American or White culture for economic benefit. I could be wrong, but I think this is the statement that Lee is trying to make in the novel’s use of a white narrator. He again seems to be criticizing false acceptance. Also, Lee may be making a statement about how white culture seems to be disappearing from the American majority when he uses the plane scene at the beginning of the novel.

Aloft is the story of Jerry Battle’s escape from life’s mundane problems. Retired from his landscaping business at 59, he prefers to spend his time flying his airplane alone above his native Long Island. He longs to live above the fray, to escape the messy entanglements of love and family. Once when Battle is flying, he experiences an odd rush watching his Long Island home fade beneath him. “I’m disappearing,” he thinks. Then, he whispers an aside to the reader: “Let me reveal a secret,” Battle confesses, “I have been disappearing for years.” He is now aloft, emotionally and spiritually untethered, severing the ties that ought to bind.

    Just what has caused Jerry to, as he puts it, “disappear” from his own life, is not apparent for the first third of the novel. Lee has a habit of withholding information, of waiting before dropping a backstory like a bomb to alter the emotional terrain. In Aloft the backstory concerns Daisy, Jerry’s long-dead wife and the mother of his two children. Lee mentions her in passing throughout the opening chapters, but not until we are fully absorbed in the stream of Jerry’s present circumstances do we get something approaching a full account.

Except for an occasional line of postmodern critique from Theresa, the issue of race is not raised. Rather, it is part of the fabric of life, expressed through Jerry’s relationships with his father, children and Daisy. None of Jerry’s memories of his marriage reveal much about who Daisy really was, she remains more or less an image of sex and hysteria in broken English. The flashback, though, does show us Jerry in a different light, and we suspect that his inability to connect with or even perceive his wife’s humanity contributed to her alienation. Lee offers no counterpoint to Jerry’s version of Daisy, but allows us to feel its suffocating limitations, Jerry’s terrible and ordinary failure.

Implicit in Lee’s portrait of Battle is a critique of contemporary American life. We may not live in Battle’s world of mini-mansions, subzero freezers and private tennis courts, but we probably recognize at least some of Jerry’s problem in ourselves. In an age characterized by the pursuit of more, more possessions, more stability, many of us feel disconnected, aloft. Lee’s novel helps us to see that an unexpected feature of achieving our American dream is a vague dissatisfaction, a listless distraction from the things that matter most.  We see the depth of Battle’s problem that also may help us to recognize the ways we are lost when we withdraw from the ones we love.

Aloft, a novel by Chang-Rae Lee starts up with the main character, Jerry Battle, flying over the Long Island area. The first chapter sets up the book and just talks about Jerry Battle and focuses a little bit on how he started flying and how he acquired his airplane.
The first thing that I notice is that flying for Jerry Battle is an escape from reality. Even when in the first couple of pages he talks about what he sees. He describes a couple of things and it looks almost like chaos on the ground and a complete opposite in the air, peace, comfort, and order in a way. He needs something to get away from all of it, just like everyone else. We all tend to look for something peaceful, something that takes the world chaos and makes it peaceful, it is just what people like to do in their free time, many people do sports, listen to music, and a lot of other things. This separation from the real world makes life easier to go by, at least in my opinion. Jerry Battle in general doesn’t seem to be worried about anything anymore, and for some reason I think that everyone would want to live his life, not worrying about anything. He gets up in the morning and does whatever he wants throughout the day. However, it is almost like a dream, it is almost impossible for a regular person in the middle class society to retire in the late 40, maybe even late 50, and do whatever they want without carrying about the world around them. But Chang-Rae Lee shows that kind of life. However, on the other hand is that Jerry Battle does not seem to appreciate what he has. I think that if someone was striving for the kind of life he has, they would act in a different way.
Also Jerry Battle seems to be like any other person in real life. He might be considered to be in a higher social class because of where he lives, because he is already retired and is only in his late forties, and some other things. He seems to be like any other person in our world in the upper-middle class or maybe even in the upper class of society. He can buy a plane, he has put his kids through the Ivy League school, and he has also been taking care of his dad’s business. Jerry Battle’s wealth could be because of his dad’s successful business, which was passed on to Jerry. It seems that even nowadays a lot of people become rich due to their parent’s wealth which got passed on. There are very few people who actually become wealthy out of nowhere.
I think that Chang-Rae Lee tries to set up the book in the way that the main character is both like us and at the same time different from the ordinary man, however, ordinary might be different for everyone.

A “Plane” Personality

            The first half of the novel “Aloft”, by Chang-rae Lee, starts off fairly slow, and most of the text seems to extensively describe suburban family life observed through the eyes of a middle aged man named Jerry. Many of the details discussed towards the beginning of the novel seem to be extremely unnecessary, that is, until we realize that this extensively descriptive and superficial narration is a key insight into Jerry Battles personality (which I believe is the focal point throughout the novel). Although most of Jerry’s long-winded narration seems unnecessary, we begin to realize that Lee uses Jerry Battle’s narration to represent the superficial personality and the behavior of most American’s today. We also notice that Lee might portray Jerry this way to show the consequences of a culture that only relies on observing what is shown on the surface without addressing the underlying factors; some of these consequences that arise include racism, sexism, and other shallow narrow-mindedness throughout society. Any person who has the same superficial viewpoints as Jerry will find it extremely hard not to judge others by their skin color, or gender.

              The biggest symbol Lee uses to highlight Jerry’s superficial observations is his recently bought, and frequently used, airplane in which he always chooses to fly alone. To me, this symbol presents the idea that in Jerry’s personal life, he prefers to be in control, or in the “cockpit”. This symbol is also present to emphasize Jerry’s “Plane Personality” which shows just how much he loves to observe others by only what he sees on the surface; Jerry’s “plane personality” resembles how Jerry uses his plane to skim the surface of the earth, while always observing sights from afar. It is no question that Jerry is a simple man with simple pleasures, and obviously would rather base his descriptions—and viewpoints of others—on the first idea that comes to mind. Jerry proves this when he states “like most people in this country I’m hopelessly obsessed with race and difference and can’t help but privilege the normative and fetishize what is not.”  By stating this, Jerry illustrates that his superficiality comes naturally, and he finds it impossible to act differently.  

            Throughout the novel, Jerry seems completely consumed with other people’s race, gender, and physical features. We first notice this when Jerry goes to visit the man in which he plans to purchase the used plane. During this meeting he makes it clear that the man is black, and mentions this even though he says “I should probably not so parenthetically mention right now that Hal was black.” By stating this, Jerry obviously realizes that he cannot help but obsess in anything other than what his acquaintances show on the surface. Jerry also shows this part of his personality as he describes his children, as well as his female companions. In all of these descriptions, Jerry uses physical qualities in his narration.

            Jerry also shows his shallow personality when he finds out his daughter has cancer. When Paul reveals that the available treatment may hurt the baby, the first thing Jerry says is “she can have another baby”. Although this type of dreadful news can make anyone speak irrationally, this extreme circumstance still proves Jerry’s superficial thought process. When Jerry makes this statement, he fails to realize that this baby might mean the world to his daughter; even more so than her own life. Nevertheless, Jerry’s instinctive response illustrates his selfish opinion which doesn’t factor in the feelings of his daughter. This confrontation with Paul definitely supports Jerry’s shallow, and sometimes selfish, personality.  

In The Heart of the Valley of Love by Cynthia Kadohata is another apocalyptic novel, revealing the differences and troublesome of the future. When compared to The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents, it is a different surrounding, although it’s around the same time period. While reading the Asian American apocalyptic book, I am able to sense the desire for comfort, stability, and a sense of longing.

Kadohata presents a sense of desire for comfort, specifically through Francie, Aunt Annie, and Jewel. This comfort may be to belong to a family, fall in love, or just have a home that one can feel safe in. Though this passage is at the end of the book, Francie reveals her heart for Los Angeles through these lines, “Los Angeles was the only home either of us had known, and maybe this would be the only love we would ever know. For those reasons, I knew I would never leave Los Angeles” (225). This shows the readers that even with all the hardships, inflation, and all the “chaos” that’s going on in her life, that Los Angeles is a place where she is comfortable in. If she would have to move to another city, it would take time for her to meet new people and it would be harder for her to adjust to her new surroundings. Francie mentions that she never had friends in Los Angeles after moving in from Chicago until she went to school. The friends in her life, specifically her lover, Mark, show stability in her life. The love and relationship that builds between Mark and Francie brings a lot more than just an everyday relationship, but it brings comfort and stability in Francie’s life.

In another character such as Aunt Annie, the readers are able to see the hurt and trauma Aunt Annie has to face when she loses Rohn. Aunt Annie’s joy, comfort, and her character are lost when Rohn disappears. She falls into a time of misery. She has no love in her life, and she also has to run the business on her own. When Rohn disappears, Aunt Annie’s character is stripped down into emptiness. This emptiness soon turns into a longing for her love again, when she starts to look for Rohn until the end.

Kadohota also presents the longing of comfort and stability through Jewel. Jewel’s background with men is tough, and yet Jewel is always longing for that man, Teddy.
Teddy abuses her, even though it’s not clearly stated in the book, and he has always abused her before he went to jail. With all these trouble at hand, Jewel still takes Teddy back when she bails him out of jail. It seems as if Jewel just longs for love even when it brings her physical pain. Teddy represents the comfort and stability in her life, even with the abuse, although she realizes the truth at the end of the book.

Cynthia Kadohata presents the simple idea of comfort and belonging in her book. Comfort and a sense of belonging are what the characters long for. A simple relationship is taken so dearly in the book In the Heart of the Valley of Love.