How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #7
When a person was caught trying to escape, he was buried to his waist at the water's edge and at dawn, a slow, almost endless procession of inmates filed by. There were no exceptions—everyone had to throw. If your toss was lackluster, the guards would shout for vigor, but you didn't have to throw again. (296)
There's really nothing further to say about the barbarism of this practice in Prison 33, but Jun Do's presentation of the story is interesting. The victim is not the only one who is constrained in this scenario; the other prisoners are compelled to do something they likely don't want to do. Prisoners have one avenue to exercise their free will in this matter: they can throw hard, or not. We wonder if this small choice was given to them merely as an additional torment?
Quote #8
... she was the one that rowed all night, without the horizon to steer toward or the sun to mark her progress. She was forever bound to the other rower, yet completely alone. She labored forward solely on duty, her body bowing to the oars, but her mind, the broadcasts she made, never had a woman sounded so free. (341)
Jun Do notes the strange paradox of the night rower. There's no denying that both rowers are tethered not only to each other, but also to their craft. It's truly a place of confinement. The night rower takes to wandering in her mind, creating strange aquatic societies and so on, completely untethered to reality. As admirable as Jun Do finds it, this inability to engage with the reality surrounding her might have been the beginning of her trouble.
Quote #9
"I'm going to re-create one of my grandmother's songs. In America, I will discover the missing words, and this song, it will be about him. It will contain everything of this place that I could never utter, every last bit of it, and I'm going to sing it on the state channel of America's central broadcasting division and everyone will know the truth of him." (394)
Sun Moon's idea has revolution written all over it—she's certainly ready for independence and freedom of speech—but she's still sadly confined to her ideas of what a state should be. She wants to rely on the centrality of a government that controls information (the "state channel of America's central broadcasting division") so that she can force people to listen to her message. We hope that she figures out how everything works in the U.S. of A. so that she can get that message out there.