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Chapter 8
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Escape from Camp 14, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tyranny and the North Korean State
Survival, Self-interest, and Morality
Indoctrination and Brainwashing
Guilt
Activism and Indifference
Summary
Analysis
In Camp 14, it isn’t uncommon for entire families to be executed. Usually, the executed parents’ children are never seen again. However, Shin has suggested to Harden that he was allowed to return to camp because he’d proven himself to be a reliable snitch.
Shin was spared further torture because he’d proven himself useful to the guards: he could perhaps help the guards preserve order and discipline at the prison camp.
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Soon after returning to camp, Shin’s teacher—whose name, after two years, Shin still doesn’t know—confronts him. He wants to know why Shin didn’t go to him with the information about his family’s escape. Although Shin explains that he didn’t wanted to wait, his teacher is unsympathetic, and beats him in front of the class.
Shin’s teacher was angry that Shin didn’t tell him about his mother’s escape plan—however, it’s entirely possible that he would have betrayed Shin in exactly the same way as the night guard did.
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On his second day back in school, Shin is sent to pull a cart of straw. The work re-opens some of his wounds, but he doesn’t dare complain, because his teacher has insisted that he work extra hard to atone for his family’s sins. In coming weeks, Shin’s peers begin to bully him, taking their cues from the teacher. Before being sent to prison, Shin was friendly with Hong Joo Hyun, the grade leader—a position that permitted Hong to hit anyone in his grade on the school’s authority. After prison, however, Hong begins to beat Shin for lagging behind. Once, he beats Shin with a shovel.
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Shin begins to hate his parents for giving birth to him within Camp 14. He hates his mother for plotting to escape, and when his father visits him, Shin refuses to speak. Yet Shin never considers suicide during this stretch of his life. Many of Shin’s peers commit suicide—death often seems a better alternative than living in constant hunger and fear. But Shin has spent his entire life in the camp, meaning that he has no understanding of what a normal, happy life could be—he has “no hope to lose, no past to mourn.”
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Shin catches a lucky break when his cruel teacher is replaced with another man. The new teacher goes out of his way to feed Shin, taking him to the cafeteria after meals and sometimes sneaking food to him. He also gives Shin less work than normal, and stops his classmates from teasing him. Hong Joo Hyun becomes Shin’s friend again. Shin begins to gain weight, and his burns heal. It’s unclear why the new teacher is kinder to Shin—perhaps he’s just kind. It’s also possible that the guards realized that they had an incentive to keep Shin, a reliable snitch, alive.
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