How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
The Captain was older. He'd been a heavy man, but he'd done some time aboard a Russian penal vessel and that had leaned him so that now his skin hung loose. You could tell he'd once been an intense Captain, giving clear-eyed commands, even if hey were to fish in waters contested by Russia. And you could tell that he'd been an intense prisoner, laboring carefully and without complaint under intense scrutiny. And now, it seemed, he was both. (43)
The marks of captivity—physical and psychological—don't fade from the characters in this work. But there's another curious observation about confinement in this passage: that even when freed, the prisoner remains captive in some way. The Captain shows this in his fear of transgression, of doing anything that will land him in prison again. His final words to Jun Do in the prison camp (just get out) bring this home.
Quote #2
The life of a fisherman was good—there were no endless factory quotas to fill, and on ship there was no loudspeaker blaring government reports all day. There was food. And even though they were leery about having a listening officer on board, it meant that the Junma got all the fuel coupons it needed, and if Jun Do directed the ship in a way that lowered the catch, everyone got extra ration cards. (44)
Jun Do's sense of freedom is defined negatively—by what it is not—rather than by any qualities exclusive to liberty. For him, the space and quiet just to think, to shape himself without scrutiny from a higher power, to have basic necessities for survival, is the clearest sense of freedom in the world.
Quote #3
He could hear the ocean out there, feel the offshoreness of it in the air on his face. And yet, when he sat on the pitch, he could make out none of it. He'd seen the sea in daylight, been upon it countless times, but what if he hadn't? What might a person think was out there in the unfathomably grand darkness that lay ahead? (67)
Earlier, Jun Do thinks about the freedom offered by the sea, which has no border or nationality—or at least, less of each. But there is a flip side to the "spontaneous" nature of the ocean: it can't really be fathomed. This moment in the darkness on the sea reminds Jun Do that they are out there, alone. He does understand what is out there beyond the darkness, and yet there is a claustrophobia about this observation that can't be denied.