Obama and Kwang :)
In class it was mentioned how reading this book in the age of the Obama administration is completely different from the time when this book was written in. I think that this is really interesting to look further into because Kwang is described as an amazing politician that brings all different races together and not many other people would be able to achieve this. I think that Kwang’s character, politically, and in the beginning of his campaign (and beginning of the novel) is extremely similar to our president today, which is funny/ironic because this novel was written before Obama was on the political map. Kwang is idealistic, young, a minority, a family man with two young children, and extremely intelligent. The people in the novel tended to fall in love with him as soon as he steps into a room, which may be an overstatement with our current president, but it can be said that both Obama and Kwang seem to be equally charismatic from what I can tell from Kwang’s description. When Kwang first arrives to make his speech the novel reads: “He held no speaking notes or cards” (Lee 150). I think that after watching Bush for 8 years attempt to make speeches then watching Obama with his eloquent turns of phrase and not ever having a speech written in front of him is simply a great change. Also, this is yet another thing that Kwang and Obama have in common and after the novel’s audience having had this experience of going from Bush to Obama, it makes the novel even better.
Kwang is extremely careful with his language, which goes along with the language theme in the novel, but also is similar to Obama: “Perhaps this was because John Kwang constantly spoke of us as his own, of himself as a part of us. Though he rarely called you a brother, sister, son. He was prudent with his language. If anything, he called you friend” (Lee 147). I see a similar connection here with Obama as well. At his inaugural address Obama began with “My fellow citizens…” however usually the president addresses the people as “My fellow Americans…” Kwang’s referral to people as friends and Obama’s referral to people as fellow citizens are equivalent in that, they are telling the people that they are equal and working toward the same goal.
I realize that Kwang and Obama’s similarities are not the most relevant topic to discuss, but when I was reading Kwang’s speech I could not help but make comparisons to Obama. Then when their similarities were mentioned in class I really could not get it out of my mind because of how eerily similar the fictional character and our very real president are, especially when one considers the fictional character was created before the president was in the political environment.
