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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in In Order to Live, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Propaganda, Indoctrination, and Truth
Family and Community
Survival, Desperation, and Adaptation
Identity and Freedom
Gender and Violence
Summary
Analysis
Yeonmi believes that if her father Jin Sik had been born anywhere else, he would have become a successful businessman—maybe even a millionaire. She traces her family’s history back to her grandfather, Park Chang Gyu, who grew up near Hyesan when Korea was still under Japanese rule. She describes Japan’s colonial government as one that tried to erase Korean identity. After Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945—during World War II—the Soviet Union took control of the North and the United States took control of the South, each installing its own leadership. Soon after, Yeonmi’s grandfather was drafted into the new People’s Army in the North as a financial officer.
Yeonmi’s belief in her father’s untapped potential highlights how the regime suppresses individuality, as talent doesn’t translate into opportunity unless it serves the state. By tracing her lineage back to Japanese occupation, she frames her family’s story within a larger pattern of imposed identity and external control. The post-1945 division shows how foreign powers set the stage for the ideological rigidity that would later govern her life.
Active
Themes
In 1950, Kim Il Sung, leading the North, invaded South Korea to reunify the peninsula, but U.S. forces quickly pushed the North back. With support from China, the North then drove the United States back toward the South Korean border. The fighting ended in 1953, but no treaty was ever signed, meaning the two sides remain technically at war. Millions died in the conflict, and North Korea was left devastated. During the war, Park Chang Gyu never once fired a weapon. After, he was awarded another government finance position, and his strong songbun—North Korea’s caste ranking system—secured his family’s prosperity, at least temporarily.
Park Chang Gyu’s wartime position speaks to how survival and success in North Korea often hinge on one’s usefulness to the state. His postwar promotion and resulting strong songbun (caste) become the foundation on which Yeonmi’s family initially benefits, showing how a single generation’s political alignment could ripple forward into the lives of their children and grandchildren. But tying prosperity to songbun also hints at its fragility: the same system that once elevated a family could just as easily later bring them down.
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Themes
Around 1980, Jin Sik enlisted in the military, but after his appendix burst a year into his service, his career ended abruptly. He then entered a university finance program at Chang Gyu’s urging. But everything changed when Dong Il, Jin Sik’s brother, was convicted of raping a middle school student and plotting to murder his own wife. The scandal destroyed the family’s formerly favorable songbun. Yeonmi’s father realized he would need to join the Workers’ Party to improve his name, and he slowly worked his way in through loyalty and personal connections. At the same time, he began secretly selling cigarettes on the Hyesan black market, which was lucrative but branded him an “outlaw” in the eyes of the state.
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