How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
It could only mean that in Jun Do's face, the Orphan Master saw the woman in the picture, a daily reminder of the eternal hurt he felt from losing her. Only a father in that kind of pain could take a boy's shoes in winter. Only a true father, flesh and bone, could burn a son with the smoking end of a coal shovel. (7-8)
This is Jun Do's first and overriding concept of familial love: it equals suffering and distress, and all injury has to be re-scripted to feel less psychologically painful afterward. Jun Do's determined to find the silver lining in the especially cruel treatment he encounters at the hands of the Orphan Master. He creates an alternate identity for himself—though it does him no real good. He's still conscripted into orphan's work, and he finds himself living out the identity of a person who is fully expendable—until, of course, he meets the love of his life.
Quote #2
Jun Do was thinking about all the popular definitions of love, that it was a pair of bare hands clasping an ember to keep it alive, that it was a pearl that shines forever, even in the belly of the eel that eats the oyster, that love was a bear that feed you honey from its claws. Jun Do visualized those girls: alternating in labor and solitude, that moment when the oar-locks were handed off. (48)
Jun Do has no practical experience of love, so when the Second Mate asserts something about true love, he goes through his mental catalogue to see if it rings true. His metaphors kind of make us wonder about the society he grew up in: all of the comparisons he lists are full of danger, promising injury, even while beauty is present. Jun Do's image of the American rowers working together seems like a more appropriate metaphor of enduring love.
Quote #3
And then the idea of a portrait, of any person, placed over your heart, forever, seemed irresistible. How was it we didn't walk around with every person who mattered tattooed on us forever? And then Jun Do remembered that he had no one that mattered to him... (72)
In one of the most poignant moments of the book, Jun Do questions if the endowment of a tattoo would place Sun Moon in his heart for real. It's a naïve and vulnerable moment for him—especially in front of his crewmates. It's also a little soul-crushing when he has to be told it's all for show, and he realizes just how alone he is in the world. And yet the tattoo does do something kind of magical for Jun Do, as it puts him in the position to be closer to the beautiful Sun Moon.