The Provincial Office
The Provincial Office symbolized police brutality in South Korea in the 1980s. The unrest that followed the murder of President Chung Hee in 1979 was unimaginable. The army took over the government in a military coup, leading to endless demonstrations from university students in South Korean universities. Instead of the police protecting the demonstrators and allowing them to express their grievances freely, the police killed thousands of students. The corpses of the students killed by the police were piled in the Provincial Office in Seoul, and the government authorities did not bother to hand them to relatives for proper burial. Some of the victims of police brutality included Dong-ho and his fellow young students. After their brutal murder by the police, their bodies were taken to the Provincial Office. Therefore, the Provincial Office is symbolic in the novel because it represents the brutal murders and atrocities executed by the police.
Rainfall
The rainfall in the city square symbolized emotional volatility and desolation. The rain started pouring endlessly when a crowd gathered in the main square to mourn the departed souls. The man leading the mourners uttered, “This rain is tears shed by the souls of the departed.” Therefore, the rain is symbolic because it represents the hopelessness and emotional instability of the mourners.
Trees and flowers
Trees and flowers symbolize escapism from the cruel certainty of the human world. Throughout the novel, the author hints that nature witnessed the atrocities directed at innocent citizens by the army. The victims of violence, such as Jeong-dae envisaged nature in their extreme anxiety to calm their minds. In other words, the author tells readers that God is the only witness to the killings of innocent people during the fight for democracy in South Korea between 1979 and 1988.
