Year of Impossible Goodbyes Literary Elements

Autobiography

The action described in the book take place in the year 1945 in Pyongyang.

The story is told from the perspective of a first person narrator who recalls the events from a subjective point of view.

The tone used in the novel is a desperate one, highlighting just how dire the situation was in the country.

The protagonists are Sookan and her family, while the antagonists are the Japanese soldiers and Narita.

The major conflict is a military one, presented in the first part as being between the Koreans and the Japanese and then later between the communist controlled Korea and the American controlled territory.

The novel reaches its climax when Sookan is reunited with her family in North Korea.

The book opens with the description of a grand tree in the garden of the narrator and the link it had with the grandfather. This foreshadows just how important the tree was for the family and how the family will be affected when the tree got cut down.

We find an understatement in the chapter when Aunt Tiger tries to console the family and assure them they will meet again one day. This is however an understatement as Aunt Tiger is later killed in a labor camp and will never be able to see her family again.

An allusion made towards the end of the novel is that the Communists made sure no one opposed their regime by using force and by killing countless men and women in various labor camps.

In the second chapter of the book, the narrator introduces her aging grandfather, who refuses to be afraid of the Japanese soldiers. The grandfather makes a remark through which he transmits the idea that while he is not afraid, mainly because he is old and feels he has nothing to lose, the younger generation does everything they can to not stand out. Through this, the narrator portrays a sad image of a young generation which feels as if it has no power and who would rather pretend they do not exit as t not put their lives in danger.

A paradoxical idea appears towards the end of the book when the narrator talks about the Russian soldiers and how, despite the fear everyone harbored for them, they still were gentle when talking with the narrator. This is paradoxical because it does not fit the image created until then about the Russian soldiers.

The narrator draws a parallel between the Russian occupation and the Japanese occupation towards the middle of the book. This parallel has the purpose of highlighting the idea that in both cases, the population suffered a lot as a result of living under the rule of two heartless nations.

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We find a personification in the first chapter in the line "the water flowing gently’’.