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Chapter 16
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl with Seven Names, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Oppression, Human Rights, and North Korea
Identity and Nationality
Family
Kindness
Summary
Analysis
Hyeonseo is 17 and will turn 18 in a few months, at which time she will officially become an adult and childish pranks will no longer be tolerated. She frequently looks across the river to the lights of Changbai, China. She hopes to one day have a business dealing illicit goods like Mother, and she badly wants a closer look at Changbai. The Chinese people on the other side of the river don’t appear to be starving, and Hyeonseo gets a sneaking suspicion that North Korea really isn’t the greatest nation in the world after all.
Surprisingly, Hyeonseo doesn’t dream of leaving North Korea because she is starving or hoping for a better life in freedom. She plans to always live in North Korea; she is simply curious as to how the other half lives. She can tell that the Chinese live a better life, but she doesn’t necessarily want that life at this point, which illustrates the power of nationality and country on one’s core identity and desires.
Themes
