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
In July of 1994, Mi-ran was just about to graduate from teachers’ college. She was working as an apprentice teacher at a kindergarten in Chongjin. On July 9th, after students had already been dismissed for the day, one of Mi-ran’s students rushed back into the room and declared that Kim Il-sung was dead. Mi-ran’s co-teacher scolded the girl for blasphemy, but the girl insisted the other teacher and Mi-ran come to her apartment and see for themselves. Sure enough, when they arrived, a special broadcast was playing and a “heaving sound” of sobbing was rising up from the streets. Kim Il-sung was indeed dead. Mi-ran felt nothing but fear: “If the Great Marshal could die,” she thought, “then anything could happen.”
As Barbara Demick begins to tell the story of Kim Il-sung’s death from her interviewees’ different perspectives, she is careful to underscore just how jarring and, in some cases, literally unbelievable his passing was. In a country that revered its leader as a god, the idea that he could suffer a mortal fate was unfathomable for many. Even for those like Mi-ran who were disillusioned by the regime in some ways already, the Dear Leader’s death signaled an unprecedented, frightening shift in an already unprecedented and frightening era.
Themes
The year leading up to Kim Il-sung’s death had been tumultuous, but in June of 1994, it seemed as if change could be on the horizon. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang to negotiate a tentative agreement to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program. Carter was also asked to convey an invitation from Kim Il-sung to the South Korean president, Kim Young-sam, asking him to visit Pyongyang for a summit on the 23rd of July. On the 6th, however, Kim Il-sung suffered a heart attack while visiting a collective farm. His death was not announced for over 30 hours while Pyongyang prepared to announce Kim Jong-il as his father’s successor. Though Kim Il-sung had been ill for years, no one in North Korea had publicly discussed even the possibility of their Great Leader’s death.
Kim Il-sung’s death was a major atmospheric shift that no one, in spite of his visible decline, was prepared for. His death was also politically inconvenient—at a moment when North Koreans were suffering and dying, and when broader diplomacy might have been used to leverage some help for the isolated nation, their spiritual and political leadership evaporated.
Themes
Mrs. Song heard about Kim Il-sung’s death while she was home making lunch for herself and Chang-bo, who was watching the television. Mrs. Song reacted violently to the news, running out to the courtyard to join her wailing neighbors; Chang-bo barely reacted at all. Oak-hee, meanwhile, had just arrived at her own building to find her husband crying on the floor of another apartment, surrounded by weeping neighbors. When Oak-hee realized what had happened, she simply returned to her own apartment to fix lunch. As the media announced Kim Jong-il as his father’s successor, Oak-hee began to cry tears of self-pity—Chang-bo had always warned her that Kim Jong-il was even worse than Kim Il-sung.
This passage illustrates the varying reactions to Kim Il-sung’s death just within one family. Though Mrs. Song immediately experienced an outpouring of grief—as so many North Koreans did—her husband and her daughter, disillusioned with the regime and with Kim Il-sung’s leadership, reacted only with stunned silence. Oak-hee’s grief was not for the passing of her Dear Leader, but rather for the increasingly uncertain, unstable future she knew was just on the horizon.
Themes
In his room in Pyongyang, Jun-sang received a visit from one of his dormmates, who told him to join the rest of their classmates in the courtyard at noon for an important announcement. Jun-sang was afraid that the news would be news of war—but in the courtyard, a female voice on a loudspeaker delivered the news that Kim Jong-il had died. As Jun-sang’s classmates fell to the ground weeping, he mirrored their movements even though he felt nothing. He was gripped with fear as he realized, for the first time, that he felt alone in his distaste for the regime. He knew that revealing these feelings was a matter of life and death, so he tried harder to summon tears to his eyes as he rocked back and forth with the others.
This passage takes the non-reactions Chang-bo and Oak-hee had in relatively private spaces and examines them further, through the lens of Jun-sang, who was forced to react falsely in order to appear loyal in front of his fellow students. Jun-sang’s fear of being seen as insufficiently upset speaks to the ways in which the North Korean regime seeks to control every aspect of its citizens’ physical and emotional lives. Jun-sang had to fake an emotion to escape punishment. In an environment where one must put on emotions this way, Demick suggests, true connection or the potential to ever really know someone is impossible.
Themes
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All over the country, citizens gathered at their local statues of Kim Il-sung to weep and mourn. The crowds quickly grew hysterical—there were incessant wails of abogi (the word for “father” or “God”), instances of trampling, and frequent fainting under the hot summer sun. The displays of sorrow and grief grew almost competitive as the mourning went on for days. Meanwhile, the media broadcasted bizarre news stories about how Kim Il-sung might not really be dead—and that even if he was, the sounds of his people’s grief could bring him back to life.
This passage illustrates Demick’s argument about the impossibility not only of true, authentic relationships but of true, authentic emotion in a surveillance state. Many North Korean citizens were, of course, genuinely mourning their leader’s death—but others like Mi-ran, Jun-sang, Chang-bo, and Oak-hee were forced to put on exaggerated displays so as not to seem blasphemous about Kim Il-sung’s passing. It is impossible, Demick suggests, to know who was authentically mourning and who was affecting hysteria in a bid to seem loyal and devoted.
Themes
As the mourning period went on, local inminban began keeping track of how frequently people were paying their respects at their local statues and how hard they were crying. Officials often gave out food at the statues—starving children like Kim Hyuck waited in line again and again for hours on end to receive multiple rations. Many older North Koreans suffered heart attacks and strokes during the mourning period, while other citizens committed suicide. Dr. Kim Ji-eun, now a pediatrician at a hospital in Chongjin, lost her father when he purposefully starved himself to death out of grief.
As the inminban began encouraging and indeed enforcing mass public mourning, even more death swept the country. As emotions ran high, as summer heat crushed the masses, and as uncertainty about the future took over, many citizens already living at the brink of what they could take due to the famine gave up altogether.
Themes
