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
The next day, Hyeonseo goes to the train station to buy three tickets, but the man behind the counter asks for her ID and the IDs of those she will be traveling with. She goes back to the hotel and asks Min-ho if he knows anyone who has an ID they can borrow. Min-ho finds a business contact who owes him a favor. The man is several years older than Min-ho, but the gender matches, and Hyeonseo hopes it will be enough.
Travel is tightly monitored in China as well, likely as a way to identify North Korean defectors and other udocumented immigrants. Still, the security is rather lax, and even though the age is wildly wrong on Min-ho’s ID, it is enough to get him by.
Themes
Using Aunt Sang-hee’s ID and the ID belonging to Min-ho’s business contact, Hyeonseo buys three tickets for a train leaving at 2:00 the next day. Miraculously, the train leaves on time, and their voyage begins. Less than five minutes into the ride, the train stops, and several officers from the People’s Armed Police board the train. Hyeonseo lifts her phone and snaps a picture of the guard. The guard is upset and tells her to delete the picture. Taking pictures of guards is illegal, he says. Hyeonseo flirts with the guard, telling him she only wanted a picture of a handsome man in uniform. The guard walks away, irritated, and Hyeonseo slumps in her seat. She has 2,000 miles left of this. How will they ever make it?
The People’s Armed Police is the North Korean police, not the Chinese police, which further reflects the power and reach of the North Korean regime. Hyeonseo and her family are not safe from the North Korean government just because they have left the country. The North Korean police have the authority to apprehend them in China, too, and bring them back to North Korea for punishment.
Themes
