Identity and Nationality Theme Analysis

As the title suggests, Hyeonseo Lee’s identity is at the center of The Girl with Seven Names, a memoir that chronicles her life growing up in North Korea and eventually defecting. Hyeonseo’s struggle with her identity begins when she is just a girl and discovers that her father isn’t her biological father. Hyeonseo’s mother was married to a man from Pyongyang before her marriage to Hyeonseo’s father, and this stranger is Hyeonseo’s biological father. When Hyeonseo is born, she is given the name Kim Ji-hae, and after her mother marries her father, Hyeonseo’s name is changed to Park Min-young. After Hyeonseo defects from North Korea and escapes into China, she assumes the name Chae Mi-ran, and she changes her name several more times over the years to disguise her North Korean identity. When she finally secures freedom in South Korea, she changes her name for the seventh and final time to Hyeonseo Lee; hyeon means “sunshine” in Korean, and seo means “good fortune.” Even as Hyeonseo fights against the oppression of the North Korean regime, she never loses her connection to her North Korean heritage, though she must frequently hide it for her safety. The Girl with Seven Names highlights Hyeonseo’s struggles with identity, through which she ultimately argues that, for better or worse, there is no escaping one’s national roots.

Hyeonseo’s identity changes several times throughout the book through repeated name changes, which are imperative to save her life and keep her North Korean identity hidden from the Chinese government. Early in her defection to China, Hyeonseo is given a fake identification card by Mrs. Jang, the Korean-Chinese woman who hopes Hyeonseo will marry her son, Geun-soo. According to her new ID card, Hyeonseo is a Korean-Chinese woman named Jang Soon-hyang, and at just 19 years old, she is even made a year older so she can legally marry in China. Hyeonseo lives as Jang Soon-hyang, even though she isn’t Chinese at all. After leaving Shenyang and Geun-soo and arriving in Shanghai, Hyeonseo again changes her name, this time to Chae In-hee. “I had told too many people in Shenyang I was North Korean,” Hyeonseo says. “I needed to bury the name Soon-hyang.” In Shanghai, she lives as In-hee, and she again claims to be Chinese. In order to get a good job, Hyeonseo needs a valid ID card, so she pays a woman in Harbin (a city over 1,000 miles from Shanghai) to secure her a new card. For $45, Hyeonseo is given the ID card of Park Sun-ja, a mentally ill Korean- Chinese woman, whose parents sold her identification for extra money. Using Sun-ja’s identity, Hyeonseo builds a comfortable life in Shanghai, again concealing her true identity as a North Korean.

Hyeonseo’s assumed identities are constantly tested, and she frequently mourns the loss of her true North Korean identity. Her experiences suggest that one can never escape who they really are. While living in Shenyang, Hyeonseo is arrested by the Chinese police and interrogated as a suspected North Korean. She is given written and spoken Chinese language tests and somehow manages to pass. The police declare that Hyeonseo isn’t North Korean, and they let her go. She is obviously relieved; however, denying her true identity doesn’t feel natural, and doing so grows more and more difficult. In Shanghai, Hyeonseo meets and falls in love with Kim, a South Korean businessman. After years of dating, Hyeonseo finally tells him the truth about her identity. “I’m not a Chinese citizen,” Hyeonseo says. “I’m not even Korean-Chinese.” Despite his initial shock, Kim accepts Hyeonseo’s true identity, something that Hyeonseo isn’t accustomed to. During the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Hyeonseo secretly roots for North Korea, and the games prompt a “full-blown identity crisis” inside her. Hyeonseo can no longer tell if she is North Korean, South Korean, or Chinese. The only choice she has is to become a global citizen, but no matter how she tries, Hyeonseo can’t fully escape her North Korean heritage.

Hyeonseo ultimately seeks asylum in South Korea as a political refugee. She is, after all, Korean, and she wants to live on Korean soil with people who share her customs and language. Hyeonseo wants to shed her North Korean identity and “erase the mark it has made on [her],” but she can’t. She wants to be part of something bigger than her family and herself—to belong to a nation. In the end, North Korea is Hyeonseo’s country; she loves it, and it is deeply connected to her core identity despite all the challenges it creates throughout her life.