Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl with Seven Names, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Oppression, Human Rights, and North Korea
Identity and Nationality
Family
Kindness
Summary
Analysis
Hyeonseo hasn’t seen Mother smile since Father’s death, but she still manages to support them with her illicit trading business. Not long after Kim Il-sung’s death, the government stops paying salaries and ration coupons are often worthless. One day, Mother comes home with a letter from a friend in North Hamgyong Province, which tells of widespread famine and food shortages. The woman who wrote the letter claimed to be dying of starvation and dreamed only of some corn cake. Hyeonseo immediately thinks of her friend—their family must not have food either.
This passage marks the first time Hyeonseo really understands the suffering of the North Korean people. Hyeonseo has never been hungry—Mother is more than willing to break the law so they don’t want for anything—but the average North Korean experience is much, much different. Even those living closely to Hyeonseo, like her friend, are suffering, and Hyeonseo had no idea.
Themes
Soon, beggars appear all over Hyesan, and children are ordered to bring a quota of their own excrement to school for use as fertilizer. There is no fuel, and factories begin to shut down, one after another. It is 1996, near Hyeonseo’s 16th birthday, and the government’s official explanation for the country’s difficulties is economic sanctions by the Americans and the United Nations, along with crop failures and record-breaking floods. The real reason, Hyeonseo will learn years later, is the collapse of the Soviet Union and the new Russian government’s refusal to subsidize North Korea with food and fuel.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, communism lost its stronghold in the East, and countries like North Korea, Cambodia, and Laos suffered greatly under dictators and deteriorating economic and political conditions. The North Korean government is quick to blame America and the West, as doing so aligns with their philosophy that the capitalist West wants the complete destruction of North Korea.
Themes
The Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, is said to be eating only rice and potatoes, but he still looks portly and healthy. Law and order begins to break down across North Korea, and soldiers and police officers turn into thieves. Mother sends Hyeonseo and Min-ho to Uncle Cinema’s near Hamhung, and Hyeonseo is shocked to see what has become of the bustling city. The factories are all closed, and people are dying in the streets. On the trip back to Hyesan, Hyeonseo sees a man at the train station with his skull bashed in and his brain exposed. Accidents like this are common during famines.
Kim Jong-il still looks fat and healthy because he isn’t eating rice and potatoes like the people. The Kim regime lives in the lap of luxury in Pyongyang while the people suffer and die. The extreme hunger incites violence and crime across society, as evidenced by the man clearly dying in the street with a fractured skull. Likely, the man was attacked for food or money, or beaten by the police for stealing the same.
Themes
One day during the summer, Hyeonseo and Min-ho come home from school to find a thief in their house. He is trying to steal their television, but he is too weak to lift it. Mother gives the man money and tells him to go buy some food. Rumors of cannibalism begin to spread, and the government issues harsh warnings against it. The travel permit system is the next to collapse, so Mother sends Hyeonseo and Min-ho to Pyongyang to visit Uncle Money. No one is hungry in Pyongyang, which looks the same as it always has, but even this doesn’t last. Not even the regime can keep the famine from spreading to Pyongyang.
Those who live in Pyongyang are likely of higher songbun and are given more rations by the regime, but even these special rations can’t last forever in the midst of a country-wide famine. Those of high songbun end up starving while the Kim regime eats well, which suggests that even loyalty and status aren’t ultimately enough to protect one from the cruelty of the regime.
Themes
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