63 pages • 2 hours read
Hyeonseo LeeThe Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2015A 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
Masks
North Koreans wear figurative masks, which they learn to apply early in life. These masks allow them to appear vigilantly loyal and subservient to North Korea itself. Lee describes masks as essential to survival in a country where misspeaking or indulging too much can result in death. After leaving North Korea, Lee finds it difficult to shed her metaphorical mask and embrace her true, individual self, though she is ultimately able to do so.
Markets
Markets are a frequently-occurring subject of Lee’s memoir. They are described as being like weeds: emerging everywhere, whether or not they are desired. North Korea detests markets as capitalist and does whatever they can to discourage them. Nonetheless, markets persist, whether they are foreign-currency dollar stores in which privileged citizens purchase foreign goods, open air food markets tolerated by the regime with a wink and a nod, or underground black-markets of illicit goods smuggled from China. China had, long ago, embraced markets within their communist system as inevitable, essential, and beneficial. South Korea is presented by Lee as one big market. North Korea does not tolerate markets, but their existence continues.
Social Status
Social status is a recurring issue for Lee and functions as a motif for showing that while North Korean culture and other cultures are in many ways very different, social status matters in each culture Lee enters into.
In North Korea, social status is assigned prior to birth, regulated, and enforced by the government. In South Korea, social status is obtained through education, family connections, and career advancement. Lee views the systems as similar. It would have been taboo for Lee to have married Kim because he had a much higher social status, just as it was taboo for Lee’s mother to marry her father, who had a lower social status. Kim was not technically born with his social status—instead, he earned it through education and achievement—but he gained privileged access to education and achievement through his parents’ social status, which he shared. Lee’s social status was also important in China, where her status as an illegal immigrant affected her opportunity and placed her at near-constant risk. Social status is exposed by Lee as a universal limiting factor, present in all cultures. It is another area in which Lee describes North Korean society as not very different than most others.
