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The Evolution of John Doe: Developing an Identity in North Korea

Haley Hopkins

Ms. Nichole Wilson

AP Literature and Composition

20 May 2014

I have read and understand the sections in the Student Handbook regarding Mason High

School’s Honesty/Cheating Policy. By affixing this statement to the title page of my

paper, I am certifying that I have not cheated or plagiarized in the process of completing

this assignment. If it is found that cheating and/or plagiarism did take place in the writing

of this paper, I understand the possible consequences of the act, which could include a

“0” on the paper, as well as an “F” as a final grade in the course

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Upon being questioned about his visit to North Korea, Adam Johnson stated that in the

isolated country, “it is illegal to have an interaction with a foreigner (Random House). Not only

that, but his North Korean minders “expressed no interest” in America. While Johnson is able to

poke fun at the strictness of North Korea’s laws by having the loudspeakers remind citizens that

“the stargazing ban is still in effect” (Johnson 1), there is still an unmistakably uneasy underlying

tone surrounding the lack of knowledge about what goes in inside the foreign borders.

Throughout The Orphan Master’s Son, Johnson continues to delve deeper into the

mystery that is the totalitarian country of North Korea. He does so through the eyes of Jun Do, an

orphan who is eventually taken under the wing of the ruthless Kim Jong Il and commits

unthinkable acts in order to stay alive. The American pun on the boy’s name is not coincidental:

Jun Do is, for the longest time, a nobody. One day, however, he decides that if he cannot become

something great, he will assume the role of someone who already is. Enter Commander Ga, one

of the most powerful men in opposition of Kim Jong Il and husband of the beautiful and famous

actress Sun Moon. When he suddenly disappears, Jun Do takes his place and, somehow, is able

to develop his own identity while masquerading as another man. Throughout the novel, the story

of the orphan-turned-leader is told from several points of view, each of which is essential to

conveying the themes of the novel. Johnson’s use of multiple perspectives – each with their own

unique writing style and purpose - also ultimately allows for the formation of Jun Do’s eventual

identity to be more clearly seen and understood.

Although Johnson has received praise for his other two works, Parasites Like Us and

Emporium, the majority of literary criticism surrounding his writing is dedicated to his most

recent novel, The Orphan Master’s Son. This is due to Johnson’s combination of satire and dark

humor, use of multiple perspectives, and dedication to research.

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Johnson’s writing is “quick and witty, sometimes satirical, sometimes downright

literary…” (Rogers). This writing style allows for his works to “come so thoroughly alive”

(Kakutatni), for all of his characters to elicit empathy. In Parasites Like Us, his writing is

described as full of “ingenuity and bravado” (Krist) as it “touches on the longing and yearning

that impels life onward” (Yoder), a theme that Johnson also incorporates into The Orphan

Master’s Son. Johnson is able to express themes such as this, as well as convey his political and

personal views on North Korea, through satire. The Orphan Master’s Son is, according to

Kakutani, “at once satiric and melancholy, blackly comic and sadly elegiac.” This particular tone

allows readers to internalize the important subject matter without emotionally traumatizing them.

Essentially, using satire is Johnson’s way of expressing his thoughts on the country without

being blunt. The loudspeaker’s perspective, in its entirety, is satirical. Its daily cries of “Good

Morning, Citizens!” (3) and reminders of the stargazing ban, which is “still in effect”, give

Johnson the ability to not only poke fun at the speakers that rattle off messages every day, but

show how ridiculous he feels it is that they are spewing propaganda at the country’s citizens. The

use of satire is not uncommon in Johnson’s writing, but what makes The Orphan Master’s Son

different is the combination of dark humor and satire. The novel is “casual and conversational

about horrors” (Parsons) so readers don’t “turn away.”

The Orphan Master’s Son is split into two parts because, according to Johnson, the shape

“seemed to echo the broken ways people tell traumatic stories’” (Strassfield). However, the

perspectives – four in total – serve a greater purpose than this. They allow for the development of

Jun Do’s identity to be followed as themes surrounding love, identity, and government interests

are conveyed. The omniscient narrator “tells the core story” (Ignatius), while the loudspeaker

“barks out a propaganda version” that serves as a reminder of how invasive and manipulative the

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North Korean government is. Better still, the interrogator “makes an awkward comic figure” that

ultimately intermittently provides some comic relief throughout the somewhat depressing novel.

Each perspective is unique in its writing style and purpose; even if one were to be cut from the

novel, the story as a whole would suffer, as would the exhibition of important themes,

particularly those surrounding the culture.

“The secret [to the novel’s success] is research” (Ignatius). Johnson spent seven years on

The Orphan Master’s Son, and as he endlessly researched the totalitarian country in which it is

set, he came to some disturbing conclusions. In Pyongyang, “all the women…wore the same

shade on lipstick” (Random House). Even if Johnson had wanted to ask them why they all chose

to conform, he could not; speaking to foreigners is illegal, and therefore, “most North Koreans

can’t tell their story” (DeHart). His trip ultimately taught him that “In North Korea there is a

national script…you have to relinquish your personal desires” (Random House). After learning

that diverting from said script could land a citizen in gulag – a North Korean Prison – Adam

Johnson realized he needed to write The Orphan Master’s Son to exemplify the brutality of the

country. His “adrenalin-laced language” (Kakutani) transforms his research “into an operatic

tale.” This is ultimately the cause of the “story’s ability to elicit empathy” (Allen) and make the

“individual’s struggle for identity against an oppressive North Korea powerfully human and

authentic.”

The third-person omniscient perspective in the first half of The Orphan Master’s Son is

essential to the understanding of why Jun Do lacks an identity in the first place; the narrative

style of this section allows for his story to be told without his inner emotional conflicts

distracting readers from overarching themes. At the beginning of the novel, Jun Do truly believes

he is the son of the orphan master. After all, “only a true father, flesh and bone, could burn a son

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with the smoking end of a coal shovel” (Johnson, 8). And “only a father in that kind of pain” –

that is, the pain of losing his wife, who Jun Do is certain is his mother – “could take a boy’s

shoes in the winter” (8). Jun Do, in his loneliness, has convinced himself that the cruel treatment

is a sort of fatherly love. This is the first true sign of Jun Do’s emotional issues, all of which stem

from his lack of a family and identity. He teaches himself to associate both physical and

emotional pain with love. The unfortunate irony of the novel’s title is realized all too soon: Jun

Do is not the orphan master’s son. He may as well be nobody’s son. Had the first half of the

novel been told from Jun Do’s perspective, the harsh realities of the orphanage would not be as

easily noticed, as Jun Do masks them by creating an imaginary family. Later in the first half of

the novel, Jun Do finds himself one of three men aboard a ship, and his job is simple: to follow

orders. To kidnap. To survive. He essentially assumes the identity of a criminal, even though he

is being coerced into taking the hostages. Because he is unable to do as he pleases, he cannot

express himself, except for in the comfort of his isolation. When Jun Do isolates himself, he

compromises his ability to form relationships, but he is also able to be himself – and in doing so,

he hopes to form an identity. Late at night, he listens to the women rowers, envious of their

freedom, and in the daytime he thinks of his crewmates with their wives’ faces tattooed on their

chests, and becomes envious of their love. Johnson employs melancholy diction to emphasize

Jun Do’s struggles within himself: phrases such as “common exhaustion” (78) and “’We’re the

ones at the bottom of the ocean’” (89) emphasize the hopelessness of Jun Do’s situation. The

only way to feel whole, to feel any ounce of true happiness, he realizes, is to become someone

else.

Commander Ga: a fearless leader, boldly standing in opposition of Kim Jong Il, husband

to the beautiful and famous Sun Moon. Commander Ga: missing. In an incredibly lucky twist of

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fate, Jun Do is able to assume the leader’s identity and, ironically, develop his own. Told again

in a third person omniscient perspective, this point of view is able to chronicle Jun Do’s

emotions and actions, as well as his conversations with Sun Moon, making it essential to the

novel as a whole. The sections in which the perspective is labeled “Commander Ga” are

plentiful, and for a reason: in neither the loudspeaker nor the investigator’s perspectives are Jun

Do’s most intimate thoughts and actions expanded upon. The conversations between Jun Do and

Sun Moon delve deep into their relationship and bring to light themes of the need for intimacy

and development of identity in order to sustain a relationship. Sun Moon allows Jun Do to feel

true love for the first time. While discussing their plan to escapes she reminds him “You are my

husband. And I am your wife. That means us” (307). Jun Do responds by simply staring “into her

eyes, hearing the words he hadn’t known he’d been waiting his whole life to hear” (307). He had

not realized how much he needed genuine love, which is only received after he assumes the

identity of Commander Ga. Sun Moon’s love for Jun Do allows him to develop an identity as

their relationship grows, because, as Jun Do realizes, being very close with someone allows

stories and identities to intertwine.

The only first-person perspective in The Orphan Master’s Son belongs to that of the

investigator. This point of view is essential to the development of the novel because it includes

important conversations between leaders of North Korea, and provides insight into events that

occur when Jun Do is not present. The investigator interviews Jun Do multiple times to try and

understand how “Commander Ga had managed to change his life and become someone else”

(276). His detailed descriptions of Jun Do when he firsts arrives after having been apprehended

– and subsequently beaten – are nauseating reminders of the harshness of the government: “His

busted lips looked pitiful, and his reddened ears were filling with fluid…” (183). This particular

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focus on detail – which the investigator is required to have – is not seen to a similar degree in

any of the other perspectives. The way Jun Do speaks during his interrogation should also be

noted: the lies he spews in an attempt to survive are poetic, descriptive, and ultimately

melancholy. He describes his love for Sun Moon before he even meets her: “I would’ve driven

off the bridge…to make that moment last forever, such was my love for Sun Moon, a woman

who was so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like”(186). The investigator and

his colleagues respond by “standing there in awe of the story” (186). Jun Do’s hypnotizing way

of telling sad stories so beautifully is only made clear through this first-person perspective. There

are also particular conversations held between the investigator and other leaders that would not

be known to have happened without this perspective. After an interrogation with Commander

Ga, the investigator has a conversation with Q-Kee in the hallway. She tells him, “I made a

mistake” (279) as she leads him to a convulsing, dying Commander Buc, whom she accidentally

poisoned. Without the perspective of the investigator, Commander Buc’s death would likely

have been a mystery. Even though there are plenty of unanswered questions throughout the book,

the investigator’s perspective allows for there to be less of them.

Perhaps the most perplexing and unique perspective in The Orphan Master’s Son is that

of the loudspeakers that deliver daily messages from Kim Jong II to the citizens of North Korea.

“Hilariously absurd” (Allen) and slightly eerie, the messages are riddled with falsehoods that

only further emphasize the destructive power of the North Korean government. The loudspeaker

intermittently “calls, ‘Citizens!’ and riffs off propaganda so outrageous it seems hyperbolic…”

(Parsons). During one announcement, the loudspeakers take a moment to report that “This

month’s recipe contest is upon us” (Johnson, 218) and “The winner will be the citizen who

submits the best recipe for: Celery Root Noodles!” The “Dear Leader” is endlessly praised, and

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many conversations between Sun Moon and the Dear Leader are shared – however, they are

manipulated. In one announcement, it is revealed that Sun Moon asked the Dear Leader if her

husband was going to be sent on a dangerous mission. “’No, no, banish the thought,’” (347) is

what the Dear Leader tells her, even though he had previously forced Jun Do to kidnap the girl

rower. The woman Jun Do once listened to on a radio was now in the Dear Leader’s custody;

this information is only revealed in the third person omniscient perspective centered on

Commander Ga, because the loudspeakers would never broadcast anything that shed a negative

light on the totalitarian leader. The relationship between Sun Moon and Commander Ga is also

manipulated; this time, however, it is overdramatized. As the two stroll through a park, the

loudspeaker says, “An army of hummingbirds hovered above them…dazzling them with the

iridescent flash of their throats” (292). Sun Moon is also made out to be a woman so beautiful

and mesmerizing, she is nearly unattainable: “Around Sun Moon, blossoms opened, the petals

spreading wide…” Certainly, no ordinary woman in North Korea could cause flowers to open

when she walked by. All of this dramatization, the way the lovers’ relationship is told as if it is

straight from a fairytale, is done so the citizens of North Korea are blissfully unaware of the

actual events occurring. Behind the scenes – or rather, in all other perspectives of the novel- Sun

Moon and Commander Ga are plotting to escape North Korea and the reign of the Dear Leader.

The families scattered throughout the country would never know this, though; the only

information they acquire is what the government wants them to.

Just as each story is unique, each perspective is unique. Even though two of the four

perspectives in The Orphan Master’s Son are third person omniscient, they are just as unique as

those of the loudspeakers and anonymous interrogator. A single perspective would have limited

Johnson’s story to one of a totalitarian country, a search for identity, or finding love. By toggling

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between four distinct perspectives – each with their respective diction and syntax choices –

Johnson is able to fully tell the story of the evolution of Jun Do, whose name is no longer

synonymous with the anonymous.

Works Cited

Allen, John Tyler. "The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson." World Literature Today. 2012: n.

page. Print. <http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2012/september/orphan-masters-son-adam-

johnson>.

DeHart, Jonathan. "Pulitzer Prize Winner "The Orphan Master's Son" Peers into North Korea's

Heart." Diplomat. 18 4 2013: n. page. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <pulitzer-winner-the-orphan-masters-

son-peers-into-north-koreas-heart>.

Ignatius, David. "Book Review: 'The Orphan Master's Son'." . The Washington Post, 1 Jan. 2012.

Web. 1 Jan. 2014. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-the-

orphan-masters-son-by-david-ignatius/2012/01/02/gIQAIZWZmP_story.html>.

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Johnson, Adam. The Orphan Master's Son. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

Kakutani, Michico. "A North Korean Soldier Finds His 'Casablanca'." New York Times. 12 1

2012: n. page. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/books/the-orphan-

masters-son-by-adam-johnson-review.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>.

Krist, Gary. "If It's' Not One Thing, It's Another." New York Times. 24 8 2003: n. page. Web. 11

Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/24/books/if-it-s-not-one-thing-it-s-another.html>.

Parsons, Cherilyn. "Kim Jong Un, This One's for You." . Truthdig, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 1 Jan.

2014. <http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/kim_jong_un_this_ones_for_you_20120203>.

Random House. "Reader's Guide: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson." . Random

House, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.

<http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/rc/2013/05/20/readers-guide-the-orphan-masters-son-by-

adam-johnson>.

Rogers, Joseph. "Emporium (02 Edition)." . Powells, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.

<http://www.powells.com/review/2003_04_05.html>.

Strassfield, Paul. "John Doe in North Korea." . Huffington Post, 1 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-strassfield/john-doe-in-north-korea_b_3087913.html>.

Yoder, Anne. "Parasites Like Us by Adam Johnson." . PopMatters, 1 Jan. 2003. Web. 1 Jan.

2014. <http://www.popmatters.com/review/parasites-like-us/>.