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Mr. Seo
The professor, later revealed to be named Yoon, is working on an oral history of the Gwangju uprising (what he calls a “psychological autopsy”). The professor is slowly interviewing all the surviving student protestors, though he often meets resistance from those most traumatized, like Seon-ju. Though some survivors decide that bearing “witness” to the 5:18 massacre should be the priority, others—specifically the narrator—continue to distrust the professor even after they share testimony with him.
The Professor/Yoon Quotes in Human Acts
The Human Acts quotes below are all either spoken by The Professor/Yoon or refer to The Professor/Yoon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4: The Prisoner, 1990
Quotes
I heard a story about one of the Korean army platoons that fought in Vietnam. How they forced the women, children, and elderly of one particular village into the main hall, and then burned it to the ground. Some of those who claim to slaughter us did so with the memory of those previous times, when committing such actions and wartime had won them a handsome reward. It happened in Gwangju just as it did on Jeju Island, […] in Bosnia, and all across the American continent when it was still known as the new world, with such a uniform brutality it's as though it is imprinted in our genetic code. I never let myself forget that every single person I meet is a member of this human race.
[…] So tell me, professor, what answers do you have for me? You, a human being just like me.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: The Factory Girl, 2002
Quotes
The repeated words from Yoon’s e-mail, a pianist hammering the same keys, flicker in your mind’s eye like a cursor blinking on a computer screen. Testimony. Meaning. Memory. For the future.
[…] Again, you experienced that moment when the contours of suffering coalesce into clarity, a clarity colder and harder than any nightmare could ever be. The moment when you are forced to acknowledge that what you experienced was no mere dream.
[…] Yoon has asked you to remember. To face up to those memories, to bear witness to them. But how can such a thing be possible?
Some weekend afternoon when the sun-drenched scene outside the window seems unusually still and Dong-ho’s profile flips into your mind, mightn’t the thing flickering in front of your eyes be what they call a soul? In the early hours of the morning, when dreams you can’t remember have left your cheeks wet and the contours of that face jolt into an abrupt clarity, mightn’t that wavering be a soul’s emergence? And the place they emerged from, that they waver back into, would it be as black as night or dusk's coarse weave? Dong-ho, Jin-su, the bodies at your own hands washed and dressed, might they be gathered there in that place, or are they sundered, several, scattered? You are aware that, as an individual, you have the capacity for neither bravery nor strength.
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The Professor/Yoon Quotes in Human Acts
The Human Acts quotes below are all either spoken by The Professor/Yoon or refer to The Professor/Yoon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 4: The Prisoner, 1990
Quotes
I heard a story about one of the Korean army platoons that fought in Vietnam. How they forced the women, children, and elderly of one particular village into the main hall, and then burned it to the ground. Some of those who claim to slaughter us did so with the memory of those previous times, when committing such actions and wartime had won them a handsome reward. It happened in Gwangju just as it did on Jeju Island, […] in Bosnia, and all across the American continent when it was still known as the new world, with such a uniform brutality it's as though it is imprinted in our genetic code. I never let myself forget that every single person I meet is a member of this human race.
[…] So tell me, professor, what answers do you have for me? You, a human being just like me.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5: The Factory Girl, 2002
Quotes
The repeated words from Yoon’s e-mail, a pianist hammering the same keys, flicker in your mind’s eye like a cursor blinking on a computer screen. Testimony. Meaning. Memory. For the future.
[…] Again, you experienced that moment when the contours of suffering coalesce into clarity, a clarity colder and harder than any nightmare could ever be. The moment when you are forced to acknowledge that what you experienced was no mere dream.
[…] Yoon has asked you to remember. To face up to those memories, to bear witness to them. But how can such a thing be possible?
Some weekend afternoon when the sun-drenched scene outside the window seems unusually still and Dong-ho’s profile flips into your mind, mightn’t the thing flickering in front of your eyes be what they call a soul? In the early hours of the morning, when dreams you can’t remember have left your cheeks wet and the contours of that face jolt into an abrupt clarity, mightn’t that wavering be a soul’s emergence? And the place they emerged from, that they waver back into, would it be as black as night or dusk's coarse weave? Dong-ho, Jin-su, the bodies at your own hands washed and dressed, might they be gathered there in that place, or are they sundered, several, scattered? You are aware that, as an individual, you have the capacity for neither bravery nor strength.
