Above all in her life is her adoration for the North Korean leader, Kim Il-Sung. As in all authoritarian societies, adoration for the supreme leader goes hand in hand with accepting the propaganda that the central authorities promote. These two elements also lead to the elimination of self, something that was discussed in one of the previous paragraphs.
Overall, apparently, the character is one of the many in North Korea who don't really ask themselves whether the Party and leaders could be at fault for the dramatic situation in which the country eventually is. Her statements once in South Korea are tremendously evocative of the ignorance and lack of acceptance in terms of the pure facts. She says that "it never occurred to me that the government was at fault." This clear statement shows the effects of propaganda on the individuals of a society that impregnated the idea that leadership figures are never...
It is impressive to note that it took so much to convince this individual that there is something terribly wrong with the country she is part of and, notably, with its leadership. It took the death of half her family to actually realize that.
Bibliography
1. Demick, Barbara. The Good Cook. The New Yorker. November 2, 2009.
2. French, Paul. North Korea: the paranoid peninsula - a modern history. Zed Books:London. 2002
3. Crossette, Barbara. Korean Famine Toll: More than 2 Million. The New York Times. August 20, 1999. On the Internet at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E3DD1538F933A1575BC0A96F958260. Last retrieved on October 5, 2010
