The Orphan Master's Son

Jun Do—a North Korean “John Doe”—is an Everyman, a man of humble birth who finds himself thrust into increasingly complicated situations at the whim of an oppressive government. His childhood working in an orphanage is interrupted by a famine—the result of a mismanagement of national resources—and he is forced to join the army, where he becomes a tunnel fighter. Then he is forcibly removed from the army and made to participate in a string of kidnappings from Japanese soil. He is rewarded with a year in language school that enables him to spy on radar transmissions at sea. His self-sacrifice leads to his “national hero” status, and he is rewarded with a bizarre trip to America and, subsequently, a sentence in a prison mine. His final reincarnation is as the commander he killed, Commander Ga. It is a dangerous position that once again puts him at the whim of a ruthless dictator. As an Everyman, Jun Do represents all the people in a repressed society who live and die by the caprices of the state.

Although Jun Do is described as the Orphan Master’s son, effectively he has no family. He never knew his mother, and if the Orphan Master truly was his father, he had no contact with him after he joined the army.