Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
The novel flashes back to six months earlier, when Sunja first met the new fish broker, Koh Hansu. While Sunja’s doing the marketing, Mrs. Jun, the seaweed seller, observes that Hansu is staring at Sunja. Hansu, wearing light-colored Western clothing, stands out from the other fish brokers “like an elegant bird.” The fish brokers aren’t trusted by the villagers because of their collaboration with Japanese officials, but the fishermen must stay on good terms with them, or run the risk that the brokers won’t buy their catch.
Wealthy, well-dressed, and elegant, Hansu appears in Sunja’s familiar world like an exotic species. He is clearly an outsider, not just because of his wealthy status, but because of his compromised position as someone who cooperates with the colonial Japanese while capitalizing on the labor of Korean workers.
Themes
Sunja ignores Hansu’s stare and buys her seaweed. When she chats with Mrs. Jun about her mother Yangjin’s hard work, Mrs. Jun tells her that “a woman’s life is endless work and suffering” and that Sunja must expect this in her own life.
The open-air market, with its atmosphere of female entrepreneurship and familiar chatter, will continue to be significant in Sunja’s life. Mrs. Jun’s remark about women’s suffering will also be a recurrent refrain. For now, though, the teenaged Sunja doesn’t have enough experience to corroborate Mrs. Jun’s claim.
Themes
From then on, Hansu “seemed to be everywhere,” and he begins asking Sunja questions while she’s doing her marketing. He sounds like “a strong person who [is] trying to sound gentle.” She never answers him. Meanwhile, Hansu desires Sunja and finds something unique about her. He learns her routine and is confident that they will meet eventually.
Hansu’s seeming “to be everywhere” sets the tone for his ubiquity later in the story and throughout Sunja’s life. From early on, it seems that Hansu has the attitude of a powerful man who’s used to getting what he wants and can afford to be patient.
Themes
One day in June, Sunja is walking home from the market when three Japanese high school boys start harassing her, stealing things out of her basket and making suggestive remarks. After one of the boys starts aggressively fondling her, Hansu suddenly appears, gripping the boy by the hair and menacingly threatening their lives in perfect Japanese. Although Hansu sounds Japanese, the boys can tell that Hansu is Korean “from his actions.” One of the boys is so frightened he cries and wets his school uniform.
Sunja feels powerless in this situation, but because he’s been keeping an eye on her, Hansu quickly swoops in to the rescue. Sunja doesn’t understand Hansu’s threats in Japanese and doesn’t realize how menacing he sounds, but the boys do, and even though they’d been mocking Koreans moments before, they’re terrified of Hansu’s brute strength.
Themes
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After Hansu forces the boys to formally apologize and sends them away, he tries to calm a weeping Sunja. He warns her never to walk alone in public, since the colonial government is looking for girls to send to China for the Japanese soldiers. Sunja knows he’s right, since it’s “always possible for a woman to be disgraced.” He walks her to the ferry, but she’s too shaken to thank him.
Sunja is overwhelmed by this encounter, partly because she’s not used to seeing a Korean standing up to Japanese people with impunity. The fate of Korean girls cruelly exploited by Japanese soldiers shows how vulnerable a young woman can be, especially under colonial domination. Sunja’s worries about “being disgraced” are ironic in light of what’s to come between her and Hansu. Now that Hansu has started watching Sunja, he isn’t going to stop.
Themes
