Human Acts

Five years after the Gwangju Uprising, Eun-sook now works as an editor for a publisher. The chapter opens on a Wednesday afternoon when she receives seven slaps across her face during an interrogation with the Seodaemun police, leaving her with a swollen face. She resolves to try and forget the slaps, one per day over a week.

That same day, Eun-sook tries to forget the first slap. She returns to her rented room and lies down on the floor. She thinks back to the moment when the man struck her for the first time. Her interrogator demanded to know where the translator was, a man whose manuscript she recently edited. Eun-sook remembers meeting up with the translator, who was meticulous as they went over his manuscript together. When she asked him how they could get in touch with him about future royalties, he replied, “I’ll be in touch, later on” (76), revealing nothing to her.

The next day, the publisher’s niece drops by the publisher’s office and looks at Eun-sook with horror. She asks what happened to her face, but neither Eun-sook nor the publisher answers her. The publisher is a timid man who had been high school classmates with the translator. He offers to buy Eun-sook lunch, suggesting they get barbecue together. His generosity leads Eun-sook to question his motives, wondering how he is unharmed, since he was also stopped at the Seodaemun police station before her. Eun-sook, the publisher, and her coworker Yoon all go to a nearby café together for lunch. At the end of their meal, the publisher offers to go to the censor’s office the next morning, a task that is usually Eun-sook’s responsibility. Eun-sook wonders if his conscience is bothering him for not taking any measures to protect her and insists on going herself. As she walks home that evening, she again thinks of the man who hit her. She feels a familiar sense of nausea, which she associates with memories of Dong-ho, who she addresses in the second person (“you”).

The next day, Eun-sook goes to the censor’s office as usual. A plainclothes policeman stops her outside, searches her bag, and checks her resident’s card. She ponders the familiarity of this interaction, thinking of how the same thing occurred before her interrogation, and four years prior when she first moved to Seoul for university and witnessed plainclothes policemen chasing students down. Eun-sook turns in her book proof to the censor and asks for the previous proof to be returned to her. When the manager returns the proof to her, she can immediately tell something is wrong, and thinks it must have been set on fire. While a censor typically crosses out certain lines, this manuscript is almost entirely blotted out, some of the pages completely painted over with black ink. It is unpublishable.

On Saturday, Eun-sook is at the office alone when she is visited by Mr. Seo, the theater producer whose proof she just picked up from the censor’s. Uncertain how to share what happened, Eun-sook sets down his destroyed proof in front of him. He looks through the proof in shock while she apologizes over and over.

Throughout the chapter, Eun-sook remembers the days after the Gwangju Uprising, and her difficulty adjusting to life after the trauma. Although her mother urged her to carry on with her life, she eventually dropped out of school and took a job with the publisher. She remembers how she felt shocked and offended upon seeing the water fountain operating again after the conflict. Eun-sook called the Provincial Office complaints department every day, asking how they could turn it on and pretend like everything was back to normal.

Eun-sook also remembers the day of Dong-ho’s death. Jin-su arrived at the Provincial Office, asking a few individuals to stay behind for a broadcast, and instructing everyone else to find a building to hide in and wait out the night. As Eun-sook exited the Provincial Office, she saw Dong-ho among the men, holding a gun. She scolded the men, telling them that Dong-ho was still in middle school, and urged him to come with her, but he ran from her. Eun-sook and another student spent all night hiding in a hospital, and the next morning, listened to sounds of gunfire coming from the Provincial Office.

The next day at the publisher’s office, everyone receives an invitation from Mr. Seo’s theater. They wonder how he plans on staging the play, since the censors made publication impossible. Yoon comes staggering in with a box of proofs for a book written by the author’s relative who immigrated to the United States. Somehow, the censors left this book mostly unaltered. Later in the day, Eun-sook skims through the book, which is a treatise on the psychology of crowds. The author makes the point that crowds can demonstrate great losses of morality or almost superhuman levels of altruism: What allows them to reach beyond their normal limits is the power of collective action.

In the final section, Eun-sook attends the play. A woman in the clothing of mourners and a man with a skeleton on his back come out onto the stage. Eun-sook sees some plainclothes policemen in the audience and wonders if they will arrest Mr. Seo when they hear the lines meant to be censored. When the woman on stage opens her mouth, however, no words come out. She simply mouths the words she cannot say. When the man opens his mouth to say his lines, what comes out is a shriek, barely intelligible as language. However, Eun-sook knows what lines the actors are saying, having read and edited the manuscript. Suddenly, the lighting changes, illuminating a boy in the aisle who is clutching a skeleton. Eun-sook mouths the name, Dong-ho. As the play comes to an end, Eun-sook stares straight at the boy, her eyes burning with tears.