Survival and Family
In Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s novel of a Korean family’s intergenerational struggle to survive under Japanese colonialism, many characters display remarkable ingenuity and grit in their efforts to thrive in hostile circumstances. From a remote turn-of-the-century fishing village to wartime Osaka, characters make decisions about business, marriage, religion, and self-identity which don’t just impact the individuals involved, but shape subsequent generations for good or ill. Though her central characters have various ambitions and even…
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Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
After Japan annexes Korea in 1910, the country increasingly falls into poverty, and Koreans must cooperate with the occupying Japanese in order to get by in daily life. The situation is not much better for Koreans living in Japan, like Sunja and her family; the Japanese look down on Koreans as troublemaking, dirty criminals and severely limit their activities. Pachinko portrays various scenarios in which Koreans struggle for survival in an imperial context, including dealing…
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Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Throughout Pachinko, characters are haunted by questions concerning their identity—questions made more difficult by a conformist Japanese society that often sees difference, especially Korean difference, as a matter of contamination or “dirty” blood. In some ways, this problem only becomes more acute in the generations after Sunja settles in Japan; her children and grandchildren must work harder to understand their difference as their lives become more tangibly rooted in Japan than in Korea. For…
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Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Early in Pachinko, teenaged Sunja chats with a seaweed seller in the Busan market. The lady tells her, “A woman’s life is endless work and suffering […] It’s better to expect it, you know. You’re becoming a woman now, so you should be told this. For a woman, the man you marry will determine the quality of your life completely. A good man is a decent life, and a bad man is a cursed…
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