45 pages • 1 hour read
Kyung-Sook ShinPlease Look After Mom
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Blue Plastic Sandals
So-nyo’s blue plastic sandals appear as a motif throughout the narrative. So-nyo hurt her foot one year while threshing wheat and wears the sandals because they’re easier on her injured foot. But this makeshift solution is temporary at best: The sandals served to bring So-nyo comfort, but now they bring pain, cutting her foot open. The sandals symbolize So-nyo. When she goes missing, the family believes the sandals were beige, but every person who claims to have seen So-nyo wandering around Seoul mentions an older woman wearing blue plastic sandals. The fact that no one in the family knows what color the sandals are echoes their lack of knowledge and misunderstanding of So-nyo herself.
Red Roses
Red roses symbolize a side of So-nyo that her family never saw—her zest for life. When she planted red roses at Hyong-chol’s first house in Seoul, he couldn’t believe that his mother loved something that wouldn’t bring her sustenance like potatoes or wheat or greens. So-nyo casually mentioned that she loved roses and wanted to plant them so that strangers could delight in the sight and fragrance. Hyong-chol never thought she’d bother planting something just because it was beautiful. Roses underscore the fact that So-nyo’s family never really knew her.
So-nyo’s Eyes
Hyong-chol describes his mother’s eyes as guileless as a cow’s eyes. A pharmacist also matches the flyer to a woman he treated based on the innocent eyes. Finally, teenagers identify So-nyo based on her eyes. So-nyo herself mentioned in a flashback that her grandmother dreamt of a cow when So-nyo was being born. This dream symbolized that So-nyo would be energetic her entire life, and that she’d have the gentle demeanor of a cow, a creature associated with maternal qualities.
Michelangelo’s Pietà
The Pietà is a lifelike sculpture that represents human suffering. Mother Mary holds a dead Christ, her face consumed with sorrow. Chi-hon breaks down while viewing the sculpture in Rome—she can see So-nyo in both of the sculpture’s figures. On the one hand, because the sculpture shows a mother’s love for her child, So-nyo’s undying love for her children puts her in the position of Mary. On the other hand, the sculpture is about the sacrifice of Jesus, which connects to So-nyo’s endlessly self-sacrificing life.
Though Chi-hon doesn’t know this, the sculpture also mirrors So-nyo’s return to her mother’s arms after death. Just as Mary cradles her dead child, so too does So-nyo’s mother cradle the broken and bruised So-nyo.
