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Chapter 1
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
For the first four years of Hyeonseo’s life, her family lives in Hyesan, which is part of the Ryanggang Province. It is the highest part of the Korean Peninsula, where the mountains are magnificent and the winters cold. During the colonial period of 1910-1945, the Japanese bought railroads and lumber mills in Hyesan, and the city was the site of the revolution near Mount Paektu. Hyesan is also the site of Baekam Country, where families are sent into exile after falling out of favor with the regime.
Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 until 1945. Under Japanese power, Korean culture and language were suppressed, and Korean resistance grew. Near the end of the occupation, Kim Il-sung led a revolutionary movement of guerillas through Mount Paektu, which helped to free the North Korean people from Japanese rule.
Themes
Mother is one of eight siblings, and they each have very different careers. Uncle Money is a successful executive at a trading company in Pyongyang, but Uncle Poor fell in songbun after marrying a woman from a collective farm. Uncle Poor is a talented painter and could paint the Leaders, but since falling in songbun, he paints only propaganda placards. Uncle Cinema runs a local movie theater, and Uncle Opium is a drug dealer, protected from investigation by his high songbun. The oldest sister, Aunt Old, is a lonely and sad woman, and the youngest is Aunt Tall. The most beautiful is Aunt Pretty, who longs to be a figure skater, but like Mother, she has a real knack for business.
Mother’s family is proof of the difference good songbun can make for North Korean citizens. While Hyeonseo claims that songbun affects the entire family, Hyeonseo and the others in her family don’t seem to be brought down by Uncle Poor’s low songbun. The fact that the regime won’t let an artist of low songbun paint their portraits regardless of talent again reflects the oppressive nature of the North Korean regime and the importance of status in society and within families.
Themes
Mother and Aunt Pretty make quite a bit of money trading in the Chinese goods coming over the Yalu River, even though making money in North Korea is considered unladylike. Mother is strict, with very high standards, and she is neat and tidy in a way that borders on obsessive. She is always dressed fashionably and wouldn’t dream of leaving the house in old or messy clothes. Hyeonseo assumes she will always live in Hyesan, until she is told before starting kindergarten that Father has received a promotion. They are moving to Anju, a city on North Korea’s west coast.
Mother and Aunt Pretty’s jobs as illegal smugglers also reflect the oppression of North Korean citizens. North Koreans are not permitted to own foreign goods—like clothes or electronics from China or America—and one can only obtain such things through illegal smuggling. Despite its illegality, the smuggling of illegal goods is quite common in North Korea, which speaks to how little North Koreans are actually provided for by their dictatorial government.
Themes
