Previous
Book 3, Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Pachinko, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival and Family
Imperialism, Resistance, and Compromise
Identity, Blood, and Contamination
Love, Motherhood, and Women’s Choices
Summary
Analysis
In 1979, Mozasu’s girlfriend, Etsuko, a 42-year-old divorcee and restaurant owner, is preparing for Solomon’s birthday party. She returns a phone message from her 15-year-old daughter, Hana. Hana tells Etsuko she’s pregnant. Etsuko supposes this is fate, as she was pregnant with Hana’s brother when she wasn’t much older than Hana is now.
Many years after Yumi’s death, Mozasu has found happiness with another woman. Etsuko has a troubled past, however, which she fears is inevitably being replicated in her teenage daughter’s life.
Themes
In her native Hokkaido, while her children were in school, Etsuko had begun a series of affairs with men she’d dated in high school. Eventually, her husband discovered her infidelity, beat her, and threw her out. Gaining custody of her children was impossible, so she moved to Tokyo and fell in love with Mozasu, the only man to whom she’s ever been faithful. When Etsuko’s mother hears that she’s dating a “pachinko Korean,” she asks, “Haven’t you done enough to your poor children? Why not just kill them?”
Etsuko, a serial adulterer, has made very different choices than other women in the story. However, her story also underscores the narrow options available to most women, as her choices cost Etsuko her children, while a man in a comparable position would likely not face such shame and ostracism. Her outcast status is compounded by her choice to date a “dirty” Korean.
Themes
Mozasu picks up Etsuko so that they can take Solomon to get his alien registration card. Like all Koreans born in Japan after 1952, Solomon will have to apply every three years for permission to stay in Japan. At first, Etsuko is distracted by thoughts of the abortion procedure she’s scheduled for Hana. Then Mozasu surprises her with the gift of an ornate watch. He says it’s a “mistress watch” since Etsuko has repeatedly said no to engagement rings. Etsuko cries and explains that she doesn’t refuse him because she’s ashamed of him, but because of her family. She thinks about the fact that she’s turned her children “into village outcasts, and there was no way for them to be acceptable anymore.” Mozasu refuses to take back the watch, and Etsuko marvels that they’ve made it this far.
There’s a note of irony about the “mistress watch,” since Hansu had given Sunja a similar watch decades ago. This time, though, it’s a mark of Mozasu’s devotion to Etsuko despite her repeated refusals. Etsuko, dwelling on thoughts of her struggling children, feels responsible for their failures and grieves having brought shame on her family. Like other men in the family, Mozasu is drawn to a woman who is “tainted,” and his own “contaminated” background seems to give him patience with Etsuko.
Themes
At the Yokohama ward office, Solomon, whom his great-uncle Yoseb had named after the wise King Solomon, cheerfully volunteers his name’s biblical origins to the clerk. The clerk just smirks that “Koreans don’t have kings anymore.” This riles Etsuko’s temper, but Mozasu restrains her. While Solomon gets his papers, Mozasu sadly reflects that he cannot change his son’s fate; Koreans “have no motherland,” so Solomon must learn to adapt and survive. Watching Solomon get fingerprinted on his birthday, Etsuko wishes that she could “take Solomon’s shame, too, and add it to her pile.”
Having attended Western schools all his life, Solomon is sometimes chattier than is the norm. When the clerk makes a racially tinged remark in response, Mozasu shows a relatively rare moment of reflectiveness. Japanese-born Koreans like themselves are stuck between two nations and must expect to fight for survival, even though they’ve lived here for decades.
Themes
Get the entire Pachinko LitChart as a printable PDF.
