Previous
Chapter 7
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
Emissary Kim returns to Ch’ulp’o before Min has finished throwing his next set of vases. One of Kim’s messengers comes and asks whether Min has any new pottery, but Min sends him away. The next day, everyone in the village hears that Kang has received a commission. Later, while Tree-ear is sweeping up the pottery shards in Min’s back yard, a village official, royal Emissary Kim, and some other men appear to visit Min. Tree-ear, eavesdropping outside, hears Kim tell Min that while Kang’s inlay work is innovative, Kim doesn’t really like his pottery and has given him only a one-year commission. Kim goes on to suggest that if Min were to produce pottery with inlay work and bring it to the capital, Songdo, Kim would examine it.
Emissary Kim, an expert in pottery, prefers Min’s work to Kang’s even though Kang’s is more innovative. Kim’s preference for Min suggests that execution and hard work are just as important as, if not more important than, innovation and originality in art.
Themes
Tree-ear desperately wants Min to show Emissary Kim the inlay-work shards—Kim, well-versed in pottery, will understand the bad firing isn’t Min’s fault—but instead Min says that he’s too old to travel to Songdo. Kim says he hopes that Min “find[s] a way somehow.” Then he leaves. Tree-ear thinks that Min’s arrogance is preventing him from showing Kim the shards with “imperfect glaze”—and so blocking him from a commission.
Here Tree-ear’s thoughts make explicit what the reader will already have intuited: Min could have used the imperfectly fired pots as an example of the inlay work he can do and so secured a royal commission—but he was too proud, in a negative sense, to show a royal emissary imperfect pots. Min’s pride causes him to produce great work, but it also prevents him from showing imperfect work even when doing so would benefit him! Thus, his pride in his work is a double-edged sword.
Themes
When Min’s wife comes out of the house carrying laundry, Tree-ear runs to help her. While they hang clothes on the clothesline, Tree-ear tries again to think how he could repay her kindness. Then, realizing that what Min’s wife wants is Min’s “success,” Tree-ear says that he overheard Emissary Kim and that he would be happy to carry Min’s pottery to Songdo for him. After a silent pause, Min’s wife says she’ll ask Min—if Tree-ear promises to travel safely and if he’ll call her Ajima, a Korean endearment meaning “Auntie.” Tree-ear starts crying: people only call their older female relatives “Ajima,” and now Min’s wife wants him, an orphan, to call her that. He agrees to both conditions and calls her “Ajima.”
Tree-ear volunteers to take Min’s pots to Songdo because he wants to reciprocate the care that Min’s wife has shown him. In return for his generosity, meanwhile, she intensifies the care that she shows him, demanding that he return home safely and essentially asking him to consider her an adoptive female relative. The mutual familial care that Tree-ear and Min’s wife show each other underscores that, in the novel, families are built out of care and kindness rather than biology.
Themes
Several days later, Tree-ear tells Crane-man that he plans to travel. Crane-man, placidly whittling, asks when Tree-ear will leave. Tree-ear—who is now terrified of the journey to Songdo, thinking of natural disasters, predatory animals, and criminals—explains that Min wants him to carry pottery to the royal court. Crane-man asks why Tree-ear doesn’t simply say he’s going to Songdo. Tree-ear says that he’s going to Songdo—and admits it sounds “too far away.” Crane-man replies that Tree-ear must take the journey a day at a time. He orders Tree-ear to go fetch straw so Crane-man can start weaving him new sandals.
By having Tree-ear admit that he is frightened of the journey to Songdo, the novel foreshadows that Tree-ear will have to undergo tests of bravery to complete his mission. Meanwhile, Crane-man’s fatherly advice to Tree-ear—that Tree-ear should take his journey a day at a time—emphasizes the wise paternal role that Crane-man plays in Tree-ear’s life.
Themes
Get the entire A Single Shard LitChart as a printable PDF.
While Min works frantically on new pottery, Tree-ear has time to think. After thinking a long time, he approaches Min and mentions that he’s been working for Min for a year. When Min asks him what that signifies, Tree-ear hesitantly asks whether Min might teach him to make pottery one day. Min goes silent for a long time. Then, calling Tree-ear “orphaned one,” he says that he won’t. When Tree-ear plaintively asks why, Min tightly explains that potters train their sons: Min’s son, Hyung-gu, is dead, and Tree-ear isn’t Min’s son.
Implicitly, Min rejects Tree-ear as an apprentice because he deeply grieves his dead son and doesn’t want to “replace” him with Tree-ear. Min’s attitude contrasts with that of his wife, who clearly also grieves her dead son but is still able to open her heart to Tree-ear. The different reactions of Min and Min’s wife show that grief can embitter people or make them kinder.
Themes
