Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Nothing to Envy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Propaganda, Misinformation, Deception, and Control
Isolationism and Self-Reliance
Surveillance, Trust, and Relationships
Scarcity, Starvation, and Desperation
Escape, Trauma, and Survivor’s Guilt
Summary
Analysis
Jun-sang knew that the postal system in North Korea was unreliable—he often went a long time without a letter from Mi-ran. However, when several months went by without any word from her, he became seriously concerned. When he arrived home in Chongjin for winter vacation, his brother told him that Mi-ran and her family were gone—there were rumors they’d defected to South Korea. Sure enough, when Jun-sang went by Mi-ran’s house, he found another family living there. He resented himself—Mi-ran had been the brave one all along, and she had defected before him.
This passage illustrates Jun-sang’s sadness and frustration in the wake of Mi-ran’s departure. Not only was he sad to have lost her—he was regretful that the atmosphere of surveillance and silence in which they lived had kept them from communicating their desires to defect with one another. Had they lived in a less oppressive place, he began to believe, they might have been able to confide in one another and escape together.
Themes
Mi-ran was one of only 923 North Koreans who had managed to leave the country between the end of the Korean War and October of 1998. The regime had always taken extraordinary measures to keep its people in place—border fences, heavy surveillance, and the threat of knowing that if one defected, their remaining family would be locked up or worse all tended to keep people scared and compliant. In the late 1990s, however, as the famine and the collapse of the economy took hold, people genuinely felt they had nothing left to lose in leaving.
By contextualizing Mi-ran’s escape within the larger landscape of defections during the 20th century, Demick shows how rare it was for North Koreans to actually leave the country. Mi-ran and her family, then, were part of an extremely small percentage of people willing to risk their lives—but Demick suggests that as the famine worsened and the economy continued to crumble, the scales would begin to tip for more and more people fed up with life under the regime.
Themes
Refugees made their way into China, and Chinese goods made their way into North Korea. The more congress there was between the two nations, the more the regime feared that “utterly rotten, bourgeois” goods and materials from the outside world would “paralyze [North Koreans] absolute idolization for the Marshal.” As North Koreans were exposed more and more often to media and simple goods from the outside world, they began to understand that the country they’d always been taught was the most advanced and superior in the world was actually leagues behind other nations. If imports like nail clippers were such a rarity, how could North Korea be the mightiest place in the world?
This passage shows how as North Korea’s intense isolationism began to break down as a result of people’s desperation, more and more individuals awoke to the realization that they’d been lied to about their country’s history, its place in the world, and its capabilities. The regime was desperate to keep people from finding out the truth—but people’s collective desperation was beginning to outweigh their fear of the regime.
Themes
Dr. Kim had never imagined leaving North Korea. The winter after Kim Il-sung’s death, however, Dr. Kim learned that she was under extra surveillance—she was suspect to the members of the Workers’ Party. Dr. Kim was shocked and appalled. She had always given her all to the regime and dreamed of nothing but joining the Party. She realized with a sinking feeling that her hard work and devotion was being exploited. Nonetheless, she continued donating her time by working extra hours at the hospital, hoping to change how her superiors saw her. When she received a surprise visit from a Bowibu agent who asked if she was planning to defect, however, she realized she’d never be able to do enough—and that her life in North Korea was only getting increasingly miserable.
Even though Dr. Kim had always done all she could to prove her loyalty to her country, she nonetheless found herself on a watchlist of suspicious individuals. Dr. Kim began to realize that there was nothing she could do that would ever be sufficiently—no matter how hard she worked or how much of herself she gave, she lived in a regime that could not control its citizens enough. Ironically, Dr. Kim’s run-in with the Bowibu, which was meant to scare her off the idea of defecting, had the opposite effect: she realized that the atmosphere of misinformation, surveillance, and isolationism in which she lived was no longer acceptable.
Themes
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Dr. Kim had stopped working at the hospital. She had lost custody of her son. She had no way of making money other than selling illegal alcohol on the black market. When she ran into a former school friend one day, she learned that the woman had lost her husband and young son just three days apart. Dr. Kim offered her condolences—but the woman robotically replied that she was glad to have “fewer mouths to feed.” This was a tipping point for Dr. Kim—she decided at last to pull out the piece of paper her father had given her before his death and try to contact the Chinese relatives listed on it.
Dr. Kim’s encounter with her former friend at the market at last pushed her over the edge. Realizing that people were so desperate that the deaths of loved ones were no longer considered a sadness but a blessing, she knew she had to get herself out before she, too, became a version of herself she no longer recognized.
Themes
In March of 1999, Dr. Kim walked across the frozen Tumen River alone. When she arrived on the other side, she walked through the countryside until she reached a farmhouse. She pushed her way inside, freezing. On the floor was a metal bowl full of white rice mixed with scraps of meat. She wondered what a bowl of good food was doing sitting on the floor—moments later, when she heard a dog bark, she realized with profound sadness and anger that dogs in China were eating better than doctors in North Korea.
As Dr. Kim arrived in China, she finally realized the extent to which the government had been lying to her. Animals in China fared better than loyal, well-educated human beings in North Korea. Realizing the full magnitude of the humiliation and cruelty she’d endured no doubt let Dr. Kim know that she had made the right choice in defecting, in spite of her lifelong dreams of proving herself a loyal, model citizen.
Themes
