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 feels her stomach flutter with nerves as she rings the bell to Aunt Sang-hee and Uncle Jung-gil’s door. Aunt Sang-hee answers and is genuinely happy to see Hyeonseo. Hyeonseo repaid her debt to them years before, and she learned that Geun-soo had since married. It is clear to Hyeonseo that Aunt Sang-hee has forgiven her for leaving so abruptly years earlier, which is good, because Hyeonseo needs another favor. She will need Aunt Sang-hee’s ID card if she is to get Mother out of China safely.
The need for Aunt Sang-hee’s ID card to safely get Mother across China again highlights how limited options are for North Korean people. Mother can’t simply travel across China; she has to lie and pretend to be someone else. Sang-hee's happiness to see Hyeonseo also underscores the importance of family in the book; their connection is more important to her than the trouble Hyeonseo presumably caused when she ran away.
Themes
Aunt Sang-hee agrees to let Hyeonseo borrow her ID card. It is Semptember 2009, and by the time Hyeonseo arrives in Changbai, it is almost three o’clock in the morning. She checks into an expensive hotel—one she hopes no Bowibu will ever look for North Korean defectors at—and calls Min-ho to confirm their plans. He will guide Mother across the Yalu River tomorrow evening between seven and eight o’clock. Mother has already bribed a hospital doctor to file a fake death certificate. As far as the government is concerned, mother died on her way to Hamhung.
Mother’s bribe ensures that her absence won’t be noticed by the secret police, but it also ensures that she can never return to North Korea. If she does, the government may find out that she faked her own death and defected, and she would likely be punished and even executed.
Themes
At 6:15 the next evening, Hyeonseo arrives on the riverbank and waits. By 8:15, there is still no sign of Mother or Min-ho. Another hour passes, and Hyeonseo’s phone rings. It is Min-ho. We have a problem, he says.
The continued problems Hyeonseo and her family experience throughout the entire book underscore just how difficult it is to defect from North Korea and evade the regime.
Themes
