What you do traditionally associate with flowers? For many, they are a sign of love and beauty. Yet, in The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, white flowers are repeatedly mentioned and are associated with a completely different thing: pain. This meaning, however, is consistently told to the reader by the characters. In this blog post, I’d like to examine the various contexts in which the white flower is mentioned, in an effort to understand if it has potential to be a symbol though its supposed meaning is often spoon-fed to the reader through association.
This meaning is first conveyed when the narrator, an interrogator who is in charge of the case of Commander Ga (Jun Do) mentions its apparition when interrogation subjects are given extreme pain by an automated torture machine called the autopilot. It is described following Ga’s description of Mongnan, an older woman who helped him escape the labor camp in which he was imprisoned: “Commander Ga continued with his story of how he and Mongnan sneaked out of the barracks, past the mud room and water barrels, and if we perhaps didn’t say it, we all must have been thinking that the name Mongnan meant ‘Magnolia,’ the grandest white flower of them all. That’s what our subjects say they see when the autopilot takes them to the apex of pain--a wintry mountaintop, where from the frost a lone white blossom opens for them. No matter how their bodies contort, it is the stillness of this image they remember. It couldn’t be so bad, could it? A single afternoon of pain … and then the past is behind you, every shortcoming and failure is gone, every last bitter mouthful” (197). In this quote, the interrogator associates the beauty of the white flower with the transcendence of death when he describes the vanishing failures of the past. Another important thing to note about the description of the flower is the fact that it grows on a wintry mountaintop, almost as if to say that death or loss of consciousness is the only true escape from the soul-crushing circumstances of the DPRK. Finally, the diction of its description hints at another context of the white flower, particularly in the words “every last bitter mouthful of it.”
At a state dinner, Commander Ga / Jun Do (who I will call simply Jun Do from now on for clarity) feeds Sun Moon a similar bitter mouthful of a white flower in anger at her comparison of hunger to the fact that one of her movies would not be screened. “He was suddenly repulsed by her. ‘You want to know the flavor of hunger?’ he demanded. From the table’s floral centerpiece, he plucked a petal from a white rose. He tore off its white base, then placed the petal to her lips. ‘Open,’ he said, and when she didn’t, he was rough with the word. ‘Open,’ he demanded. She parted her lips and allowed the flower in. She looked up at him with welling eyes. And here the tears spilled as slowly, slowly, she began to chew” (259). This reinforces the association of the white flower with pain and hunger, but if in this context it implies just that, it is likely to not be a symbol.
Later, the interrogator again references the white flower: “Either way, something profound takes place inside these people. In the end, all they can remember is that icy mountain peak and the white flower to be found there. Is a destination worth reaching if you can’t recall the journey? I’d say so. Is a new life worth living if you can’t recollect the old one? All the better” (352). Here, we are given the meaning that the flower represents salvation from the past again. This is made very clear and shows the flower functioning as an important image, but not a symbol because the meaning is almost directly given.
When Commander Ga is finally killed by the autopilot and the interrogator submits himself to the same torture, the narrator mentions that there was no white flower at all. Is the notion of release from mental pain through physical pain real, or is it simply an illusion? While the white flower recurs and has great meaning, it does not seem to be a symbol because its meaning is often explicitly associated with grand concepts.
Thanks Nate! This sounds really interesting. Your analysis of Jun Do's name seems accurate and insightful. Names do often have great significance. In one of the plays I read, "The Respectful Prostitute," names are also very important. Because the main character of the play, a black man, has been stripped of his identity by society, he is referred to as "The Negro." Your analysis of symbolism also uses a very effective method. You start with the typical associations readers have with a flower, that of happiness and birth. This allows you to understand the ironic place of the flower within the novel. Your evidence is convincing, yet you come to an interesting conclusion. Why does the flower have meaning, yet should not be considered a symbol? It seems that if the flower has some external ideas associated with it, it must be a symbol of some sort. Maybe digging deeper could help. Your third blog post is excellent. This novel seems clearly political, and your analysis is convincing. Although it is clear that North Korea suffers from a number of problems, it is important to understand the statements made by the II as not lies, but instead ironic statements and arguments. Your last post does a great job at tying together loose strings in your analysis, and has a great deal of intertextuality with the plays I read. Like Sartre, Johnson seems to believe that some element of truth is subjective, and that this subjective element allows the truth to be greatly manipulated. Just as another can act as a subjective mirror in "No Exit," it appears that Johnson understands that individuals are able to reflect and force their conceptions of truth on others. Our books are similar in their understanding of reality. Those with knowledge and power can deceive others. Reading these blog posts was very interesting! "The Orphan Master's Son" will certainly be on my "to read" list in the future.
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