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Chapter 23
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
At the beginning of 2014, Yeonmi planned to continue studying police administration and improve her English, unaware that within a year her life would shift entirely. After giving a speech to the Canadian Maple International School in Seoul that February, she received speaking invitations from the United States to Australia—though she still didn’t feel “qualified” to represent all North Korean people. A detective assigned to protect her informed her that she was being watched by the North Korean government, which nearly frightened her into silence. But she realized that giving in to their intimidation meant she was still under their control, and she knew that she was free.
Stepping into public advocacy forces Yeonmi to confront her fear of being visible, and speaking for “all” North Koreans feels impossible to her because she doesn’t see herself as important enough to represent anyone’s trauma. Yet the fact that the North Korean regime continues to monitor her contradicts this belief, signaling that her voice matters more than she realizes. Her decision to keep speaking despite the danger it poses marks a psychological break from the state’s longtime hold. She chooses autonomy not because the threat is gone, but because she refuses to let fear govern her the way it once did.
Active
Themes
Yeonmi continued her coursework through September 2014, but her schedule soon became too hectic to remain at Dongguk. That year, she served as the North Korean representative at the One Young World Summit in Dublin. Her introducer became emotional while recounting her story to the audience, and Yeonmi surprised herself by crying, too, revealing a side of herself that she rarely allowed others to see. For the first time, she spoke openly about the sexual violence and trafficking she had witnessed in China, though she still could not bring herself to admit that she had been trafficked as well. Just a month after her speech in Dublin, at only 21, she began writing this memoir.
Yeonmi’s growing speaking career pushes her beyond the academic world she worked so hard to enter, and she begins to take on greater public responsibility. The emotional moment at the Dublin summit is significant because it crystallizes just how tightly Yeonmi has controlled her inner world. Naming the sexual violence that she witnessed, even if she can’t yet include herself in the narrative, shows how public testimony is a way to reclaim power over experiences that once took her agency away. In that sense, this memoir becomes a record of truths she once wanted buried but now feels compelled to bring to light. She understands that telling her story is part of her own healing—and also part of exposing a system that regularly silences people like her.
Active
Themes
Once she began writing, Yeonmi immediately knew she had to tell the full truth, including her own trafficking. She discussed it extensively with Keum Sook and Eunmi, and they agreed that sharing everything was the only way forward; it could save lives. In time, Yeonmi learned that the North Korean regime had labeled her a “human rights propaganda puppet” and spread hateful lies about her and her family. In the spring of 2015, her mother retrieved Jin Sik’s ashes and discovered that Hongwei had kept his promise to tend his gravesite. One day, Yeonmi still intends to bury her father in his homeland of North Korea. As of 2015, she has not finished her college degree but still intends to, and Keum Sook is no longer with her abusive partner. Yeonmi now intends to study law.
