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.
Themes
The Individual Versus the Collective
Many of the conflicts in Please Look After Mom stem from the conflicting values of different generations. So-nyo’s children realize that they have neglected their mother, and their guilt grows after her disappearance. Each child appraises their individual culpability by comparing their values and worldviews to their missing mother’s.
So-nyo’s entire life had been one of self-sacrifice for her children, and the modern concept of simply not doing something based on one’s feelings did not seem possible for her, though she did hope for this kind of freedom for her youngest daughter. Chi-hon and her younger sister equated their mother with the kitchen because their mother spent most of her life cooking. Only after So-nyo’s disappearance do the sisters wonder if their mother really enjoyed cooking or if she only did it because society expected her to comply without complaining. In fact, when Chi-hon asked her mother whether she enjoyed cooking, So-nyo replied, “I don’t like or dislike the kitchen. I cooked because I had to. […] How could you only do what you like? There are things you have to do whether you like it or not” (60). So-nyo drew joy and strength from feeding her children, and so didn’t approach the task of cooking in terms of autonomy or individual pursuits.
The modern idea of individual choice comes up again when Chi-hon speaks with the man who will design the missing-person flyer. The man has a skin disease, so his mother made him a set of soft cotton clothes by hand before she died. She dedicated her life to making sure her son was comfortable. Though the man remembers this with fondness, when Chi-hon asks him if he really thinks his mother was happy, her question offends him. He responds, “My mother was different from today’s women” (64), implying that his mother did things from of a sense of maternal duty and traditional women’s roles.
So-nyo’s youngest daughter also feels a conflict between her modern values and those she believes her mother held. Poignantly, this conflict only exists in the youngest daughter’s mind—So-nyo never wanted to impose her ideas about a wifely role on her youngest child. Bright and promising, the youngest daughter had the potential to achieve great professional success. The youngest daughter, however, chose to be a caretaker for her three young children, abandoning her career and education. Yet, the youngest daughter feels guilty that she can’t be the type of self-denying mother So-nyo was:
You said I was different, unlike other young moms these days, that there was a small part of me that’s a little bit like [Mom], but, sister, no matter what, I don’t think I can be like Mom. […] I love my kids […] But I can’t give them my entire life like Mom did. […] Because I have my life, too. […] Even though I’m a mother, I have many dreams of my own (235).
What the youngest daughter doesn’t realize is that So-nyo never wanted her to become a self-effacing housewife. Instead, So-nyo wanted her youngest daughter to remain unencumbered by family and responsibility so that she could enjoy everything life offered.
The Trauma of Not Having Closure
Nearly every character in Please Look After Mom must search within themselves after So-nyo’s disappearance, and many of them regret how they treated So-nyo; they wonder if they’ll ever get the chance to make things right.
So-nyo’s sister-in-law wants to apologize to So-nyo for three main things: how she treated So-nyo when Kyun died, how she treated So-nyo when Kyun cut down the apricot tree, and how she treated So-nyo when So-nyo was sick and the sister-in-law refused So-nyo more medicine. The narrative amplifies the sister-in-law’s regret when So-nyo’s spirit sees her tearful and saddened about her mistreatment of So-nyo. Though the reader sees So-nyo forgive the sister-in-law, the sister-in-law doesn’t receive this closure.
Hyong-chol, who regrets not sticking to the promise he made his mother to become a prosecutor, also gets no closure. Though Hyong-chol appears calm and collected to his siblings, he’s broken inside. Now that his mother is missing, he can’t apologize for not keeping his promise:
Mom always called it his dream, but he hadn’t understood that it had been Mom’s dream, too. He only thought of it as a youthful wish that couldn’t be achieved; it never occurred to him that he had deflated Mom’s aspirations as well. He realizes that Mom has lived her entire life believing that she was the one who held him back from his dream. I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t keep my promise (120).
After he realizes that he let down So-nyo’s dream, Hyong-chol falls to the ground from grief and cries, inconsolable. Even when he manages to get back to the things that once made him happy like golfing, but he’s never able to tell his mother sorry.
Chi-hon rues that none of her New Year’s resolutions include doing anything with her mother. The absence of their mother in her resolutions is achingly painful to her now that their mother has disappeared—there is no time now for Chi-hon to be a better daughter. Chi-hon feels extra guilty for yelling at her mother and calling her a country bumpkin right before So-nyo’s disappearance—Chi-hon believes this argument caused the headache her mother suffered that day.
So-nyo’s husband also blames himself, regretting his fast gait and wishing he could change things and apologize. Even the younger daughter wishes she could tell her mother that she respects her and loves all the things So-nyo did for the family.
The Seepage of Events Through Time
So-nyo asks Chi-hon about the link between past, present, and future: “Do you know what happens to all the things we did together in the past?” (210). Chi-hon suggests that the past seeps into the present and that the present seeps into the future. This way of thinking makes sense for Chi-hon’s character because, who wants life to be rational: “Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them” (30). Chi-hon believes in logical cause and effect—that events trace back to their sources. For So-nyo, however, Chi-hon’s worldview has traumatic implications. So-nyo has led a complicated life filled with traumatic experiences. For So-nyo, losing a child, losing her beloved brother-in-law Kyun, and enduring the Korean War are events she doesn’t want seeping into the present.
So-nyo’s difficulty in understanding that past events might seep into the present and future is a sign of trauma. When she couldn’t find closure after the community blamed her for Kyun’s death, her doctor recommended she see a therapist. So-nyo’s husband, himself was grieving Kyun’s death, dismissed the advice. Instead, So-nyo’s ongoing distress found an outlet in her volunteer work in the Hope House orphanage and her near-adoption of another boy named Kyun there.
The novel highlights habits as another way the past seeps into the present. So-nyo’s husband never altered his gait to match his wife’s, even though she asked him to slow down constantly for over 50 years. He simply expected her to catch up. In his tearful confession to Chi-hon, he admitted that he hadn’t even thought to check if So-nyo was next to him or following him on the day she disappeared at Seoul Station; the carelessness he was guilty of in the past seeped into the present: “as soon as we got to Seoul I just walked ahead. […] My old habit just took over. That’s how it happened” (174). Conversely, Chi-hon’s old habit of jamming her fists into her pockets to admit when she is wrong in an argument also resurfaces after her mother’s disappearance, as her past self seeps into the present woman she has become.
