Human Acts

Through Jeong-dae, Kang explores a soul after death, and the connection between soul and body. Jeong-dae is a poor middle-school student who lives with his older sister, Jeong-mi, in Dong-ho’s annex. When he and Dong-ho are out among the protestors, he is killed when soldiers open fire into the crowd. Later, his soul awakens as his corpse is loaded onto a truck with other corpses. The bodies are stacked in a lot and left to rot. Jeong-dae narrates his story despite being dead, showing that some part of him continues to exist beyond his body. Dong-ho’s belief in the existence of the soul proves correct through Jeong-dae’s narration. However, Jeong-dae is tethered to his body, showing that the mistreatment of his body has a terrible impact on his soul: “With neither tongue nor voice to carry it, my scream leaked out from me in a mess of blood and watery discharge. My soul-self had no eyes; where was the blood coming from, what nerve endings were sparking this pain?” (59). Without the closure of a proper burial, Jeong-dae is trapped in the torment of unanswered questions.

Jeong-dae also represents the spiritual qualities of a soul that set it apart from the body through his desire for connection. Despite being characterized as funny and well-liked by Dong-ho before his death, Jeong-dae begins to lose his identity as a lingering soul. He no longer feels any particular age and is unable to sleep or communicate with others. However, his connections to Dong-ho and his sister remain, and he continually thinks about them. This conveys that even after death, the soul remains meaningfully connected to others. Furthermore, Jeong-dae continually questions who killed him and his sister, and why. This questioning highlights the senselessness of state violence, especially since he had been an unarmed boy when he was killed. Jeong-dae’s search for answers and understanding shows that the soul needs closure to move on from this world.

The aftereffects of trauma are explored through Eun-sook’s survivor’s guilt. During the Gwangju Uprising, Eun-sook is a student who goes to donate blood for the injured and ends up becoming a key volunteer in handling corpses. On the night of Dong-ho’s death, she hides and survives. This leads to her developing depression and survivor’s guilt years after the uprising. When Mr. Seo comes to pick up his proof that was destroyed by a censor, Eun-sook repeatedly apologizes for the proof’s state, despite having no control over the situation—a poignant example of the unfair responsibility she bears for the state’s violent actions against its citizens. Eun-sook seems to have lost the desire to live wholeheartedly, and she no longer finds pleasure in eating or sleeping. Instead, she feels guilty for the continuation of these human needs.

By depicting Eun-sook’s struggles in 1985, Kang shows the continued presence of state violence after the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Eun-sook doesn’t just have past trauma; she lives with daily traumas. Weekly, she visits a censor’s office where manuscripts are censored before publication. She becomes a victim of physical violence once more when she is interrogated by police for her work with a wanted translator. The scenes occurring in 1985 show that long after the uprising, South Korean citizens continued to experience state violence under the oppressive regime.

Through Seon-ju, Kang explores the labor movement in South Korea and how it factored into the Gwangju Uprising. Seon-ju’s role in the labor movement highlights the ways in which women, often overlooked and undervalued, were crucial to the movement’s success. Seon-ju came from a poor family and struggled to find employment, leading her to factory work. There, she receives half the pay of men while working under terrible conditions. Though she eventually finds better employment through her work as a transcriber, she has developed unhealthy patterns due to her history of factory labor. Seon-ju’s coworkers call her a “search engine” because she has completely devoted herself to work.

Seon-ju’s character is also shaped by her experience of sexual trauma. Her trauma is not only a personal tragedy but represents the way in which women experienced sexual violence at the hands of soldiers during the Gwangju Uprising. As an adult, Seon-ju is emotionally unable to maintain meaningful relationships due to the trauma she experienced. At times, she struggles with detachment and disassociation, unable to revisit the horrifying events of the past. Through her character, Kang explores the ways in which sexual violence creates lasting trauma in the body.

While all of the characters cope with the trauma of the Gwangju Uprising in various ways, Jin-su’s trauma culminates in his death by suicide. Jin-su’s experience of torture left him with physical and psychological scars. He is haunted by memories of the children killed by the state and the torture he experienced at the hands of soldiers. Because of his soft features and gentle nature, the unnamed prisoner speculates that Jin-su may have experienced more extreme measures of torture. After being released, he feels isolated, unable to connect with others or find any meaning or purpose in his life. In the end, Jin-su’s suicide is a tragic reflection of trauma, and how the legacy of violence can continue to shape lives long after violence has ended. Alongside his suicide note, he includes a photograph of dead children in the Provincial Office yard, revealing that Dong-ho’s death weighed heavy on him long after the uprising.

Like Dong-ho, Jin-su is preoccupied with the human soul in the days leading up to his death. During his last conversation with the unnamed prisoner, he says that the lives they led before the conflict were like glass, and only when they were broken was the truth of the human soul revealed. While his thoughts are scattered, his metaphorical comparison of lives to glass represents the way in which moments of tragedy can shatter a life. On the other hand, tragedy also gives way to selfless acts of humanity—such as the brave leadership of Jin-su himself prior to his imprisonment.

While many details of the unnamed prisoner’s life before the Gwangju Uprising remain unexplored, his presence in the novel serves as a reminder of the unpredictable nature of trauma and the necessity of self-examination. The unnamed prisoner wonders why fellow prisoner Jin-su was unable to survive the effects of trauma, when the two of them shared similar experiences in prison. Ultimately, he admits that the impact of trauma is a wholly personal experience, and there is no way to neatly analyze or predict it. His final admonishment to his interviewer, a professor, is to look inward for answers. By looking within, the professor can examine his own soul and what he is capable of, suggesting that each individual may be capable of good or evil when swept up in collective action.