Human-Like Trees as Graves
The novel opens with the striking image of black trees resembling "men, women, and haggard children huddling in the snow" (Chapter 1). Kyungha realizes that the tree-lined hill is a graveyard, imbuing the landscape with an ominous and desolate aspect. This recurring image turns out to be a dream that haunts Kyungha, and it stems from her in-depth research about historical massacres. In an attempt to resolve the haunting and reckon with the past, Kyungha proposes a collaborative project with her friend Inseon that would be part installation and part documentary. Their failure over the years to realize the project corresponds with the impossibility of fully resolving historical atrocities.
Snow on Jeju Island
The snowstorm on Jeju Island strikes Kyungha—who is not used to the way that such weather impacts the island's infrastructure—as intense at first. She describes the "rolling grey mass of cloud, fog, and snow" and how Inseon's childhood home "exists as a precise location inside that huge storm" (Chapter 3). Other notable descriptions of the snow include "Snowflakes resembling a flock of tens of thousands of birds appear[ing] like a mirage" and “a seemingly limitless cascade of whiteness" (Chapter 4). This seemingly inhospitable environment generates a feverish state that riddles Kyungha with chronic pain. Once she awakens, she seems to have entered a different reality in which the borders of time and memory are traversable.
Tactile Imagery
Han's prose includes poetic and tactile imagery, generating a reading experience that is felt in the body. For example, Kyungha muses on how "people say 'light as snow.' But snow has its own heft, which is the weight of this drop of water. People say 'light as a bird.' But birds too have their weight. The feeling of Ama’s two feet on my right shoulder, rough against the weft of my pullover. The warm softness of Ami’s chest as he perched on my left index finger" (Chapter 4). Kyungha goes on to describe the impact of such tactile experiences when she says, "strange, the sensation of contact with a living thing, how it can remain imprinted on the skin. As if touch alone can singe and break flesh. The delicate press of those birds against my skin remains unmatched" (Chapter 4).
Shadows
Shadows have a prominent presence in the novel. For example, Kyungha recalls seeing Inseon and her bird's shadows blend on the wall, and she traces the outline. Later on as her sense of reality flickers in and out of the believable realm, Kyungha sees only Ami's shadow without his body in front of the room's only source of light (Chapter 8). In this way, shadows could represent death since Ami passed away some time ago. In Chapter 10, Inseon's apparition wants to show something to Kyungha. Kyungha only consents because she wants Inseon's "shadow to stop. Because [she refuses] to let it spread like ink and engulf [her] own." This shows a desire to maintain her identity.
