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President Chun Doo-hwan
The interrogator works at Eun-sook’s local police station. When he learns that Eun-sook has worked with the wanted translator to publish a controversial play in Korean, he slaps her seven times, startling her with his brutality. For a week, Eun-sook remains haunted by these slaps; she especially struggles with the fact that the interrogator looks “utterly ordinary”; “had they met on the street,” Eun-sook thinks, “she would have taken him for some run-of-the-mill company manager.”
The Interrogator Quotes in Human Acts
The Human Acts quotes below are all either spoken by The Interrogator or refer to The Interrogator. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3: The Editor, 1985 Quotes
His face was utterly ordinary. Thin lips, no noticeable irregularities to his features. He wore a pale yellow shirt with a wide collar, and his gray suit trousers were held up by a belt. Its buckle gleamed. Had they met by chance in the street, she would have taken him for some run-of-the-mill company manager or section chief.
“Bitch. A bitch like you, in a place like this? Anything could happen, and no one would find out.”
At this point, the force of the slap had already burst the capillaries in her cheek and the man's fingernails had broken her skin. But Eun-sook hadn't known that yet.
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The Interrogator Character Timeline in Human Acts
The timeline below shows where the character The Interrogator appears in Human Acts. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 3: The Editor, 1985
...hitting her so hard it drew blood, had “thin lips” and looked “utterly ordinary.” The interrogator struck Eun-sook as a middle manager, even as he violently demanded to know where the...
(full context)
...Eun-sook couldn’t believe it: “surely he’s not going to hit me,” she’d thought, until the interrogator hit her with so much force her neck seemed to snap.
(full context)
...gone to the police station only minutes before she had, even speaking with the same interrogator.
(full context)
After work, Eun-sook walks home. Now, she thinks about the second slap—why did the interrogator use his left hand when he used his right hand for everything else? She feels...
(full context)
