Analyzing Human Existence through Imitation and Mending: A Comparative Study on the Symbolic Acts in Color Struck and Clothes Laugh

Abstract

This essay analyzes the symbolic acts of imitation and mending in two plays, Zora Neale Hurston’s Color Struck and Jeong Kyung-Hwan’s Clothes Laugh. Through this examination, this essay aims to show the most important requirement for finding for one’s self is to shift the focus from external elements, to center on “I, myself,” a process that relies on continuous introspection and self-evaluation of one’s characteristic and identity. Color Struck and Clothes Laugh depict external elements, such as skin color and clothes, causing division and prevailing over shared humanity. Both plays use personification in the name of the play; Color Struck presents the image of colors colliding into each other, and Clothes Laugh describes inanimate objects’ expression of emotion. The main characters in the two plays show a lack of self-awareness and the devaluation of their inner value through their obsession with external representations. The two plays are set in different eras and cultural backgrounds, and the protagonists, Emma and Jasook, express their outward orientation differently. In Color Struck, the harsh racial discrimination of the American South shapes Emma’s self-image and perception of others; Emma does not face her skin as it is, and her valuation even desires to imitate lighter skin colors and specific figures is seen as quite pessimistic and regressive. However, through Emma’s experience, the audience realizes that valuing one’s self and defining one’s identity come from imitating others’ identity or ideology, but requires discovering “I, myself” and living it out. Through Clothes Laugh, readers and viewers realize that negotiating one’s personhood, worth, and identity is accomplished through the independent process of constantly revising, supplementing, and developing one’s self-concept, like the images of the characters in the play.