Of Character and Place (Short Paper 1)

A characteristic of contemporary literature is the question of identity: the struggle to find it and the tension between self-identity and pressures of culture. The identity puzzle can be examined in the context of character development and the idea of place. Place is more than a backdrop; it is a dynamic force of culture that is vital for understanding identity. For the novels Please Look After Mom and My Michael, the characters are inextricably linked to physical and cultural place.

In Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please Look After Mom, the physical context of the hometown Chongup is crucial to the character development of Mom. Additionally, examining the culture surrounding working women and the link between her and her house may help in understanding Mom’s identity as a person who is a mother and not “Mother”. Housework easily defined Mom. There was always something going on in the house, it was “like a factory; [Mom] prepared sauces and fermented bean paste and hulled rice, producing things for the family year-round" (5). She kept busy not only to prepare meals and keep the house, but also to earn money because of Father’s absence. She knew that he could not be depended on for the family's welfare. Rather, Father often felt isolated thinking about living in the "dull town stuck to the south of the country" even though it was his birth place (130). He "left home without a word and wandered the country", returning for the ancestral rites as if by "genetic orders" (130). However, Mom chose to be with the children, living the mundane life of a house-wife even when her husband abandoned her for another woman, suggesting that her identity (and hope) lay with her kids, not in her marriage.

To support her five children, Mom did everything from breeding silkworms, brewing malt to sell at the market, and making tofu (56). Her mantra was to save everything and to not spend money. She was never idle, "her hands were always busy... [and] she tilled the fields without rest" (56).

Furthermore, Mom was intimately connected with the landscape of the Korean countryside. She was "either in the kitchen or in the fields or in the paddies" to make ends meet and ultimately give her children the opportunities she never had (56). In fact, Chi-Hon, the eldest daughter, cannot help but associate her mother with the kitchen, though she doesn't know if she liked being there (55). She feels "caught off guard" at the question from her younger sister Yu-Bin who has a young family now: "How did Mom feel all those years…cooking for our big family?...How did Mom get through it every day?" (56). Perhaps the matter of personal choice in being in the kitchen or the fields is inconsequential to the pressing needs of providing for the family. As suggested by Yu-Bin’s poignant question and Chi-Hon’s astonishment, the link between Mom and her kitchen, fields, and rice paddies seems to endure throughout time as a source of identity.

 Chi-Hon’s relationship with Chongup can be likened to the connection she has with Mom. The eldest daughter has lost her bearings in her hometown, and consequently, with her own mother. The once familiar neighborhood roads are foreign when she spontaneously return home on a as an adult. The paths she used to take when she was young are forgotten, even the ones she could take with her eyes closed. Just as she wonders, “Had the trail changed so much?” she may also question whether she herself had changed too much to know Mom or if she knew her mother as a person rather than as “Mom” – a title, classification or allotment in life (47). Years later as an adult, or as a “child” with her eyes open, Chi-Hon can’t be sure of who her mother is, let alone physically find her in Seoul. As she wanders the pathway to her grandmother’s house with Mom, she notices that her mother is silent, as if reflecting upon the significance of the physical place of home: “Mom stood there, staring at the place where her mother's house once stood. Nobody lived there anymore" (47).        

Just as the character of Mom in Shin’s novel reflects the importance of place, the characters in Amos Oz’s My Michael are also intimately connected to Jerusalem. The city can be seen as an externalization of Hannah’s inner turmoil and frustration, at the same time also a reflection of her relationship with Michael. They have an estranged intimacy in which neither can acutely understand nor acknowledge. Hannah often feels the need to shake him from his restraint and self-control. She admits that, “It was often I who upset the balance…I wanted to shake him out of his calm”, and has the urge to “shatter” it (52, 78).

Similarly, while walking in Jerusalem with Michael, Hannah feels acutely disconnected to her home town as if she is incapable of forming bonds with places or people (Michael). The city contains a dichotomy of warmth and potential for harshness. Both friendly old women who hang laundry on their balconies and “an immeasurable weightiness” and “overpowering arbitrariness of the intertwining alleys” characterize Jerusalem (81). Like her city, she is emotionally impenetrable; she is made up of “shells within shells and the kernel is forbidden” (82). She was born in Jerusalem, yet is estranged from it. Likewise, Hannah is linked to Michael in marriage, yet he is not hers, nor can she penetrate his mind, his self-containment – his inner life. Though they are physically close, Hannah is aware of a keen separation between them: “You lie next to me at night, and you are a stranger” (56).

Furthermore, the city seems as fickle as Hannah herself, who is apt to change moods just as easily as a cloud coming over Jerusalem can cause immediate transformation (82). She calls her home city an “illusion”, something that she cannot grasp or hold onto: “All of a sudden the city seems very insubstantial” (20). The city is both a place of “dwelling” and an uninhabitable “burning city”, incapable of growth and intimacy (81). Perhaps, like Jerusalem, Hannah internal dialogue is a stark mix of the past and future; hope and fear; and realism and fantasy.  

In both Please Look After Mom and My Michael, characters are linked to their cultural and physical context. Understanding the dependency and influence of place on characters – their relational ties and emotional qualities – can help reach a more complete, complex picture of their development.