Chang-bo Character Analysis

"How are we going to live? What are we going to do without our marshal?" The words came tumbling out.

[Chang-bo] didn't react. He sat pale and motionless, staring into space. Mrs. Song couldn't keep still. She was pumped up with adrenaline. She rushed down the staircase and out into the courtyard of the building. Many of her neighbors had done the same. They were on their knees, banging their heads on the pavement. Their wails cut through the air like sirens.

She thought of Chang-bo especially when she was eating. How that man loved to eat! He would have so enjoyed the sausage. […] Then her thoughts drifted to her son. Her memories were so tinged with guilt and shame that she couldn't even speak about him. So strong, so handsome—such a tragedy to have lost him at twenty-five. How much life he had missed. How much they had all missed, herself too, her daughters, locked away in North Korea, working themselves to death. For what? We will do as the party tells us. We will die for the general. We have nothing to envy. We will go our own way. She had believed it all and wasted her life. Or maybe not.

“When I see a good meal like this, it makes me cry,” Mrs. Song apologized one night as we sat around a steaming pot of shabu-shabu, thinly sliced beef cooked in broth and dipped in a sesame sauce. "I can't help thinking of his last words, 'Let's go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine.’"

"How are we going to live? What are we going to do without our marshal?" The words came tumbling out.

[Chang-bo] didn't react. He sat pale and motionless, staring into space. Mrs. Song couldn't keep still. She was pumped up with adrenaline. She rushed down the staircase and out into the courtyard of the building. Many of her neighbors had done the same. They were on their knees, banging their heads on the pavement. Their wails cut through the air like sirens.

She thought of Chang-bo especially when she was eating. How that man loved to eat! He would have so enjoyed the sausage. […] Then her thoughts drifted to her son. Her memories were so tinged with guilt and shame that she couldn't even speak about him. So strong, so handsome—such a tragedy to have lost him at twenty-five. How much life he had missed. How much they had all missed, herself too, her daughters, locked away in North Korea, working themselves to death. For what? We will do as the party tells us. We will die for the general. We have nothing to envy. We will go our own way. She had believed it all and wasted her life. Or maybe not.

“When I see a good meal like this, it makes me cry,” Mrs. Song apologized one night as we sat around a steaming pot of shabu-shabu, thinly sliced beef cooked in broth and dipped in a sesame sauce. "I can't help thinking of his last words, 'Let's go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine.’"