Do you find Mrs. Young-Soon Han to be a sympathetic character?

Question

Why or why not?

Answer 1

First reaction to this character might be negative: she is apparently well-to-do (a house, a car, and a high tax rate), yet she portrays herself as a victim, despite the fact that many members of the African American community— toward whom her feelings are mixed at best—live in greater poverty than she does. However, despite the common tendency to assume that the wealthy have no right to be unhappy, you should remind the class, if necessary, that not all problems are materialistic, that money doesn’t solve everything, and that virtue is not always in inverse proportion to one’s bank balance. In Mrs. Young-Soon Han’s favor, it might be pointed out that she is not unsympathetic to the black community (“at least they got something back, you know”); that, as the beginning of her monologue makes clear, she complains of the same invisibility, the same indifference and neglect from the mainstream society, that other minority groups have undergone; and that she has a genuine grievance when she maintains that, no matter what injustices others may have suffered, hardworking industrious store owners like herself have done nothing to deserve the destruction of their businesses.