Shard Symbol Analysis

In A Single Shard, the shard of Min’s pottery that Tree-ear salvages and brings to Emissary Kim represents the worth of hard work and high standards in making art. Tree-ear has volunteered to bring some of Min’s vases, displaying a new innovation known as “inlay work,” to the capitol city Songdo so that Emissary Kim can decide whether Tree-ear’s employer, master potter Min, is worthy of a royal commission for ceramics. Yet on the way, bandits seize Tree-ear and steal his pack. When they realize that the pack contains only pottery, not food or money, they smash Min’s vases in revenge. Though at first Tree-ear despairs, he ultimately salvages a shard of the vases that shows Min’s utterly beautiful inlay and glaze work to show to Emissary Kim. On the basis of the single shard, Emissary Kim decides to give Min a royal commission because even just a shard of Min’s pottery shows his perfect technique. Thus, the novel implicitly endorses Min’s extremely exacting standards for his art and slow, careful work process by illustrating that a true expert like Kim can tell Min is a great artist from just a broken piece of one of his vases.