Human Acts

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

State Violence and National Trauma

Kang’s Human Acts is a poignant portrayal of the Gwangju Uprising and its aftermath, exploring the theme of state violence through the depiction of its impact on victims and their families. The novel reveals how the South Korean military regime used brutal tactics to suppress democratic protests, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians. Kang shows that state violence is not a singular horrific point in history, but can have long-lasting effects that are felt for generations to come.

Through her characters, Kang portrays the physical and psychological scars inflicted on those who survive violence. The characters’ experiences reveal how state violence is not limited to the act itself but can extend far beyond it. Eun-sook lives with survivor’s guilt, feeling guilty for human needs such as eating, and is haunted by the memory of Dong-ho: “Yet Eun-sook herself wanted nothing more than to speed up the aging process. She wanted this damned, dreary life not to drag on too long” (91). She isn’t the only one who suffers: Seon-ju refuses to allow herself to revisit the events of the past, living a lonely life buried in work, and Jin-su is so tormented by the past that he eventually dies by suicide. The unnamed prisoner tells the professor, “Some memories never heal. Rather than fading with the passage of time, those memories become the only things that are left behind when all else is abraded. The world darkens, like electric bulbs going out one by one” (139). Despite having survived a tragedy, Eun-sook, Seon-ju, and the unnamed prisoner feel the absence of those who didn’t—and this makes living difficult. Kang specifically explores trauma through characters who cannot escape their past. The characters’ suffering serves as a reminder of the need to acknowledge and confront atrocities committed by the state so as to find some sense of peace.

Moreover, Kang emphasizes the importance of bearing witness to tragedy and refusing to forget victims. The character of the Writer represents this commitment to bearing witness, showing how individuals can choose to confront state violence by keeping the memory of victims and survivors alive. As a child, the Writer is so affected by a photograph of a woman with a bayonet scar across her face that something in her is permanently changed: “Soundlessly, and without fuss, some tender thing deep inside me broke. Something that, until then, I hadn’t even realized was there” (202). Even though she is not directly involved in the conflict, she feels the pain of Gwangju’s citizens as a former resident. As she researches the conflict, she herself becomes haunted by nightmares of soldiers, as though she had experienced these events herself. Kang’s portrayal of the trauma of state violence goes beyond the moment of violence—extending to those who survive and witness atrocities. The unnamed prisoner entreats his interviewer to look within himself to understand the events that happened, and in the Epilogue, the Writer follows this advice while trying to honor the memory of Dong-ho. The Epilogue serves as a powerful reminder of the widespread impact of state violence and the need to learn from the past to prevent such atrocities from happening again.

The Power of Collective Action

Crowds are a reoccurring motif, as the gathering of protestors and volunteers near the Provincial Office shows a collective strength in caring for one another in the midst of great peril. These protestors and volunteers take time to tend to the bodies of victims, revealing their deep sense of humanity. Groups of soldiers show up throughout the novel to beat or kill characters, and are rarely described as individuals, but rather faceless masses representing the power of the nation. Even the bodies of the fallen are framed as a group; Dong-ho imagines the corpses gathered together as a sort of convention. Through the motif of crowds, Kang explores the most extreme sides of human nature, portraying collective action as a neutral tool that can be used for great good or horrifying evil.

The novel depicts how collective action can be a force for good, as ordinary people come together to demand change and resist oppressive regimes. During the Gwangju Uprising, citizens protested the authoritarian government’s violent suppression of civil liberties and demanded democracy and human rights. The novel highlights the courage and resilience of those who stood up against the military regime, who risked their lives to fight for their beliefs. When Dong-ho first sees this crowd, he is struck by how powerful they seem: “A great mass of people, more than a hundred thousand strong, surged through those streets with the rippling motion of colossal waves” (28). This collective power is recognized by other characters as well. The unnamed prisoner remembers being one of many arrested, singing the national anthem and “[…] feeling that it was all right to die; I felt the blood of a hundred thousand hearts surging together into one enormous artery […] the sublime enormity of a single heart, pulsing blood through that vessel and into my own” (121). His moral conviction is strengthened by being a part of a collective, creating so much magnanimity in him that he is willing to die for the cause.

However, the novel also explores how collective action can be a force for evil, as seen in the brutal tactics used by the military to suppress the uprising. The military’s use of violence, torture, and murder against innocent civilians highlights the dangers of collective action when it is motivated by corruption. The soldiers lose their humanity within collectives, committing atrocities that would be unthinkable for an individual to commit on their own. They repeatedly abuse vulnerable people without any regard for their humanity: shooting children, beating naked girls in the street, throwing grieving mothers into prison. In the Epilogue, the Writer is struck by the extreme tactics these soldiers were willing to employ, the lives they were willing to sacrifice. However, the reoccurring motif of the photograph of dictator Chun Doo-hwan reminds the reader that the collective force of the soldiers is operating under a corrupt individual’s orders. However, this isn’t to say that individuals shouldn’t be held accountable: As discussed in the State Violence and National Trauma section, one must examine history and understand their own potential for evil. The novel portrays how individuals can become swept up in collective action and lose sight of their own morality and empathy. Overall, Human Acts highlights the complex, nuanced nature of collective action, both good and bad, and the way it warps people.

The Relationship Between Body and Soul

The Korean word honbaek refers to the traditional belief that the soul has a dual nature: “In Korean spirituality, the soul and spirit of a person is defined as ‘honbaek’: ‘Hon’ is the soul that rises to heaven, while ‘baek’ is the spirit body that is interred underground” (Kang, Hyungwon, “Tradition of worshipping the heavens continues in 21st century Korea.” The Korea Herald, May 2022). Throughout Human Acts, Kang explores the relationship between the body and soul. Informed by this cultural background, she depicts a vision of the body and soul as intertwined, so whatever impacts one also impacts the other.

In Chapter 1, Dong-ho ponders the souls of the dead bodies he attends. His questions about the existence of souls are answered in Chapter 2 when Jeong-dae narrates after his death. The horrifying mistreatment of Jeong-dae’s body, stacked in an empty lot with other bodies and left to rot, keeps his soul bound to his corpse, unable to move on and find peace. His body and soul are thus intricately bound together. However, despite his entrapment, he continues to hold onto his previous connection to his sister Jeong-mi and Dong-ho, showing the soul’s resilience in the face of trauma and violence. Similarly, whatever happens to the living physically impacts their soul spiritually. Eun-sook experiences survivor’s guilt so great that she hopes her life will go by quickly, Seon-ju buries herself in work because she’s unable to face her memories, and Jin-su’s torture at the hands of the state leads him to die by suicide. Not only are bodies marked and marred by state violence, but souls are forever changed by what they’ve witnessed.

Finally, the novel explores the idea of collective trauma, and how it can impact the human soul on a deep level. The characters are not only affected by their own experiences of violence and trauma, but also by the shared trauma of their community. This is shown in the way Dong-ho’s death weighs heavily on the soul of each of the other characters. The trauma of the Gwangju Uprising is depicted as a collective wound that affects all who witnessed or were personally affected by the violence. The novel shows how this shared trauma can become a part of the soul, shaping the individual and collective identities of the characters. This depiction of trauma as a soul-deep wound highlights the profound impact of violence on the human psyche, and the long-lasting consequences of state violence on individuals and communities.