Every Falling Star

In Every Falling Star, the goddess Chilseong represents authentic religious belief in contrast with the worship of human dictators that North Korea’s government imposes on North Korean people. The memoir first mentions Chilseong when narrator Sungju and his father, exiled to the famine-stricken northern city of Gyeong-seong, are foraging for food in the woods at night. Sungju’s father points to the constellation Ursa Major and tells Sungju that on Jeju, an island in South Korea, people identify the brightest star in Ursa Major with the goddess Chilseong and the other six stars with her children. As a mother, the goddess Chilseong is a guardian of children, so Sungju’s father encourages Sungju to pray to her when he needs help. Yet when Sungju asks his father what people believe in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, his father curtly replies that they believe only in North Korea’s first dictator Kim Il-sung and his son, current dictator Kim Jong-il. This response implies a contrast between the folk goddess Chilseong, a guardian of children, and the human dictator who is allowing children like Sungju to starve in a famine—suggesting that Chilseong is a legitimate object of belief, whereas belief in Kim Jong-il is merely an oppressive political imposition. Later, when Sungju has become more disillusioned, he admits to himself that he can no longer put faith in Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, or North Korea’s government as he was taught to do in school, but he wants to put faith in “something higher and good”—like Chilseong. After this point, Sungju prays to Chilseong at various points in his memoir. In this way, the memoir uses Chilseong to suggest that while North Korea’s regime has twisted the human tendency toward religious belief, directing it illegitimately toward corrupt human dictators, religious belief can still be a meaningful vessel for people’s hopes and aspirations.