Shin witnessed his mother endure unspeakable cruelty: the guards raped and assaulted her, and her peers bullied her for falling behind on her work quota. And yet Harden gives the impression that Shin didn’t feel
any strong emotion about this: he watched, blank-faced, as the guards (whom he had been taught to fear but also to respect and obey) raped his mother, unsure what to feel. The “ideological struggle” seems like both a punishment and a kind of brainwashing.