50 pages • 1-hour read
We Do Not Part
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Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3 Summary: “Flame”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Inseon perceives that it is getting slightly warmer outside. She suggests that they go to look at the location where they will plant logs in the ground for their film. Kyungha does not want to go outside, but she is consumed by thoughts of mass graves and bodies rotting and realizes that it might be preferable to remaining inside with her thoughts.
Inseon grabs the candle and begins to make her way outside, turning back to tell Kyungha to walk in her footprints so that she does not get lost. Kyungha doesn’t understand the route Inseon is taking; she is confused by her surroundings and does not recognize anything, although she is sure that they should be on a path she is familiar with. She wants to turn back, but Inseon reassures her that they will be fine and insists that they press on.
When they stop, Inseon tells Kyungha that she visited this spot with her mother. She recounts the long months she spent caring for her mother as she was dying. Her mother became increasingly confused and often mistook Inseon for one of her own sisters. As her memory faded, she told stories from the past with greater urgency, speaking of her husband, her brother, her sisters, and the various military efforts to crack down on communism. She spoke of her efforts to retrieve the bones of her family members and uncover long-suppressed details of various mass killings.
Inseon admits that after her mother died, she, too, became fixated on the past, both her own family’s history and Korea’s broader political history. She recounts searching for a site for their film and staring out to sea, unsure whether she was “losing her mind” or doing important work. Inseon’s mother claimed that her father, during his long imprisonment, came to visit her and sat on the river bank each night—that he was in two places at once. Inseon is sure that Kyungha visited her on the island, and Kyungha reflects that Inseon should be in her hospital bed right now. Perhaps, they agree, it is possible to be in two places at once. They notice that the candle is going out. After repeatedly attempting to light match after match without success, Kyungha finally sees a burst of flame. She will be able to relight the candle.
Part 3 Analysis
Friendship and Human Connection remain important in this final section of the novel as Kyungha and Inseon continue to process what they’ve learned together. The two have long shared their experiences, and as they discuss plans for their film, it is evident that each woman provides the other with emotional support as they continue to engage with material that is deeply upsetting on both a personal and cultural level. Inseon shares more with Kyungha about her family and even takes her to places that she visited with her mother to give more shape to her personal history. Together, they battle through the snow that has symbolized censorship and suppression throughout the novel in order to reconnect with the knowledge of earlier generations. This scene echoes the scene at the beginning of the novel where Kyungha watches the elderly woman disappear into the snow, shifting it to show how Kyungha and Inseon’s pursuit of the truth allows them to transcend that silence and come closer to the past generations’ truths.
The agency of the two women is an important component of the novel that becomes especially relevant in Part 3. That Kyungha listens to Inseon tell so much of her family’s story becomes a powerful way for her to bear witness. Bearing witness is of special importance because of how hard the Korean government worked to prevent survivors from telling their stories. Kang emphasizes the importance of both the telling and the listening as components of bringing stories out into the world with this simple yet intimate act between two friends.
Kyungha and Inseon’s focus on their film is also important in this last section of the novel. The work that they have done to uncover family stories, other eyewitness testimonies, and long-buried historical records is all in service of the film that they plan to make. They see their work as their opportunity to undo some of the damage done by years of obfuscation and suppression. Ultimately, Historical Memory and Collective Trauma is the most important of this novel’s themes, and as the novel ends, Kyungha and Inseon develop specific ideas about how they will go about helping the Korean public address its collective trauma and recover lost portions of its historical memory.
In the novel’s final scene, Kyungha and Inseon realize that their candle is about to burn out. Kyungha struggles to re-light it in the wind, but ultimately, she is successful. That the novel ends with an image of light, and specifically light saved from being extinguished by their effort, is symbolically significant. In contrast to the dark outside and the snow that obscures, which represent the silence and suppression of the past, the candle symbolizes how Kyungha and Inseon will shed light on Korea’s violent past through their documentary. Further, they intend that the documentary, their one candle, will become part of a broader movement to make sure not only that the atrocities of the Korean government will not be repeated but also that their crimes will never again be hidden from the public eye.
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