a life univocal" because he believes that it will provide his son with "the authority and

confidence that his broad half-yellow face could not" (267).

 What compels Henry to create an intricately crafted life-narrative is not much

different from a child's imaginative longing for a perfect family of a noble origin, which

Freud eloquently expounds in "Family Romances."314 As the child matures and grows out

of his belief in the absolute power of the parents, Freud explains, he starts to view his

parents realistically and criticizes them in comparison with other parents. In the

meantime, he also develops phantasies of a particular type in which he is born of different

parents of a well-endowed family but somehow becomes a step-child or an adopted child

in the current lowly household. The core of this imaginative dreaming consists of "getting

free from the parents of whom he now has a low opinion and of replacing them by others,

who are of higher social standing."315 Many of the assimilative moves Henry makes

in Native Speaker are similar to the child's imaginative activities propelled by his desire

to replace the real parents of a humble origin with others with more power and prestige.

In both cases, elements of denigration and glorification coexist, producing a powerfully

seductive phantasy of an identity affiliated with the big Other that will rescue one from

feelings of helplessness and belittlement.

 Although Lee maintains a sympathetic touch toward most of the main characters,

his portrait of Henry, especially his embrace of the identity dictated by the mainstream

society's stereotypical notion about an Asian-American male, is sometimes quite

satirically cynical. Henry is a more ominous version of the model minority of the 1960s,

resurrected and refurbished in a milieu of globalization and multiculturalism. The

intelligence agency Henry works for is a private firm not affiliated with any government