The Leavers

The novel explores how identities are contingent on race, culture, and class. The narrative presents both Daniel/Deming and Polly/Peilan’s changing names as indications of the change in their identities. In the chapters where a third person narrator reveals Deming’s past and where Polly narrates her own in the first person, Deming is referred to by his Chinese name, the name that Polly gave him. At Ridgeborough, Deming is renamed “Daniel” by the Wilkinsons, a name that is used by his teachers and his peers, even though Deming initially has trouble using it and answering to it. His eventual acceptance of the name indicates Daniel’s uneasy growth into an American identity in the context of the suburban middle-class, white background he has been taken into. This identity is a troubled one, given that at various points it clashes with how Daniel is seen by others. This occurs, for instance, when a Chinese woman approaches Daniel at the mall to ask for directions in Mandarin and when his friend Cody makes fun of his accent when he first arrives at Ridgeborough.

Daniel’s return to New York City further troubles his identity as “Daniel.” In