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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Single Shard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Found Family
Pride and Work
Art
Bravery
Honesty
Summary
Analysis
When Tree-ear arrives at Min’s the next morning, he gives Min’s wife his own bowl, claiming that he doesn’t want to bother her by using hers. In reality, his plan is to eat half of the food she gives him and bring the half-full bowl back to Crane-man. Though Min’s wife is confused, she takes the bowl. Tree-ear feels guilty but argues that he hasn’t really lied to her or done anything wrong. He works cutting clay all day. When he finishes, he goes to fetch his bowl where he’s hidden it and finds it empty, the food eaten by some animal. Furious, he picks up the bowl and throws it—nearly hitting Min’s wife, who is coming back from picking berries. Though she makes a joke of it, Tree-ear is deeply embarrassed.
Tree-ear is clearly of two minds about whether his behavior toward Min’s wife is honest. On the one hand, he doesn’t tell her the whole truth, i.e., that he wants to use his own bowl so he can bring back some food she gives him to Crane-man. On the other hand, he thinks that hiding some of the truth may be legitimate because it doesn’t hurt Min’s wife in any way. Tree-ear’s internal conflict highlights that it isn’t always self-evident what “being honest” requires in a given situation.
Themes
Tree-ear figures out a better way to hide the food: he digs a hole, puts the bowl in it, and covers the bowl with a big rock. A few days later, when he goes to take the bowl, he finds that it was been refilled with food—enough food for both him and Crane-man to have dinner.
Just as Tree-ear tries to care for Crane-man by hiding his food more successfully, so—by implication—Min’s wife starts caring for both Tree-ear and Crane-man by refilling Tree-ear’s food bowl. Her generosity shows that Tree-ear was right to guess that she was kind like Crane-man; it may also foreshadow that she will become a quasi-familial figure to Tree-ear the way Crane-man did.
Themes
After about two months of working for Min, Tree-ear begins learning how to drain clay. This involves mixing the clay with water and draining the mud through a sieve over and over to remove “impurities.” After the clay has been sieved repeatedly, Min tests its smoothness with his hands. Min still yells at Tree-ear often, but after the first day when he thought Min was a thief, he never hit Tree-ear again. For the best celadon glaze, he makes Tree-ear drain the clay six or more times, until Tree-ear is hugely annoyed. The glaze—a mixture of clay, wood ash, and water—is sea-colored and extremely beautiful, but after the third draining, Tree-ear can no longer feel the difference in smoothness.
Previous passages in the novel have established that Tree-ear has an innate aesthetic sense: despite his lack of training, he appreciates the beauty and complexity of Min’s pottery. Yet his inability to discern between different drainages of clay the way Min can shows that innate aesthetic sense isn’t enough to be a great potter: Min’s training and experience allow him to make fine judgments about pottery than the inexperienced Tree-ear can’t yet.
Themes
Tree-ear is used to paying attention to village gossip because it lets him know which households might have garbage dumps full of food—during wedding preparations or after a birth or a funeral, for example. Now that he’s working for Min, he uses this habit to pick up gossip about his employer: Min is known for working slowly, making excellent pottery, and charging more than anyone else. His slow work speed and perfectionism have cost him many impatient clients, so that he has only a few regular customers. He would benefit from a royal commission, an order from the king—which Tree-ear senses is Min’s secret ambition, though Min never says so.
Crane-man, a highly positively represented character in the novel, has argued for the dignity of hard work. Now Tree-ear learns that Min is a hard worker with perfectionistic tendencies. Given that Min lives up to Crane-man’s standards, the novel may be hinting that Min will turn out to be a worthy mentor for Tree-ear despite Min’s curmudgeonly and harsh demeanor.
Themes
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Tree-ear once thought of eating his entire lunch because he knew that Min’s wife would refill the entire thing, but the idea scared him and made him feel “greedy”—besides, he thought Crane-man would say he was “taking advantage.” Instead, all late summer, he thinks of how to thank her. He does any household chores he can think to do for her, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
Modern readers are unlikely to find adolescent Tree-ear “greedy” for wanting to eat two full meals a day. Yet Tree-ear’s desire not to “take advantage” of Min’s wife shows the honesty he has learned from Crane-man, while his desire to thank Min’s wife through work shows not only his work ethic but also his growing affection for her.
Themes
