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JUDIT NAGY Dispositionism vs. situationism One striking example of Mary/Yu-Rhee’s situationism is how she is dating both Joon-Ho and Mr. Allen/Will at the same time: “I spent Saturday nights with Joon-ho, Sunday afternoons with Will.”*? Her endeavors to please both men result from a quest to find real love rather than some carnal desire to fool around with them. Mr. Allen/Will, her good-looking Canadian high school teacher appreciates her talent for writing and serves as an intellectual companion. On the other hand, Joon-Ho features as “a boy who'd given me my first kiss, who’s whispered my lost name. I remembered the origami swan he’d made me, and his comments about swans mating for life.”*° The following sentences provide evidence for Mary/Yu-Rhee’s situational drive to please Mr. Allen/Will and Joon-Ho, respectively. Moreover, the last sentence in the second quotation also furnishes evidence of Mary/Yu-Rhee’s perception of the conflicting situational and dispositional stance.” (1) “I felt conspirational. It was only a matter of time before he realized what I had already known that I could make him happy in a way Ms Nakamura never could. Unlike her, with her grand plans to control his life through marriage and babies, I simply wanted him to be who he wanted to be — a writer, like me.”” (2) “I’d agreed to play his game by sleeping with him and fighting for him to stay at the university. It was easy now to pass judgement upon myself, but did I need to feel bad for making choices I thought were right at the time?” At the same time, when it comes to the dinner for the marriage arrangement between Mary/Yu-Rhee and Joon-Ho, first she tries to adhere to the situationally appropriate behavior but then — inspired by a song — she decides to act according to her own principles, bearing testimony to dispositionism: In [Joon-Ho’s mother’s] eyes, I was a Canadian bride being trained as a Korean wife. My mother had warned me to be agreeable. Did I know that Joon-Ho ate only Korean food? Did I know that Joon-Ho ate only Korean food? Did I know how to cook Korean food? Was I a good cook? Better than his own mother? I nodded and kept nodding. Yes, I would bear a grandson. Two. Three. Family — his — would 39 Ibid., 143. 10 Tbid., 193. * In the case of the interdependent self-construal, behavior of the same person will vary from situation to situation, and from one time to another. 2 Choi, Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety, 142-143. 13 Ibid., 248. * 166 +
