The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee Analysis Essay

The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee is a first-hand story of a North Korean defector. She writes about the hardships of living in North Korea from birth until her escape at age 17. From a young age, Hyeonseo learned the secretive ways of life in Korea and how to hide behind a mask. School taught her to never trust anyone with her secrets because those secrets will be exposed. Hyeonseo writes about how in school everyone in the class was forced to get up in front of the class and snitch on someone else in the class. This event was one of the first things that started to form Hyeonseos “mask” as she liked to call it. Hyeonseo was raised in a world where lying and deceiving others was a normal part of everyday life. Worse than this, she grew up being taught to believe that North Korea was the best country in the world!

Hyeonseo’s family was fortunate enough to be in the higher class of people with higher songbun. Songbun is a system of status used in North Korea to help isolate families from one another. The higher the songbun the better off that family will be and vice versa. Hyeonseo talks about how raising your songbun status is nearly impossible but lowering it can happen quickly through simple mistakes or misunderstandings. Hyeonseo’s family’s high songbun would often save Hyeonseo’s family from blackmail or extreme mistreatment and punishment. You may think having high songbun means they follow the laws to the extreme; however, this was not the case. Hyeonseo’s mother played a big part in the trading of goods across the border. She spent many long hours working with brokers in secret to get things that could only be found outside of North Korea. 

Hyeonseo was lucky enough to not be quite as isolated from the rest of the world. For most of her life, her family lived just across the border and could see China by just standing outside. She would often receive gifts from her parents for things that would be considered illegal in North Korea. Hyeonseo and her younger brother would watch Chinese television channels in their home at low volume with all the windows closed and covered so that they would not be turned in and punished. Her father and brother crossed the border quite frequently. Her dad being part of the military up until his death allowed for much more lenience with crossing the border and her brother being too young to get into extreme trouble for crossing would often cross to play with the Chinese boys on the other side. 

Not long before Hyeonseo’s 18th birthday, she decided to cross the border to China. She didn’t want to cross the border to escape North Korea’s controlling government. Instead, she wanted to cross the border out of pure curiosity. She wanted to experience the world outside of North Korea while she was still young and safe from some of the harsh North Korean punishments like execution. She was able to cross the border surprisingly easily with the connections she had with the border patrolmen. She hadn’t planned on staying long especially because she hadn’t told her mother that she left. However, she had so much fun learning of all the freedoms in China from her aunt and uncle who lived there that a month passed much quicker than she expected. On one particular night, Hyeonseo received a rushed call from her mother. Her mother told her that a census had taken place while she was gone and that she had to claim Hyeonseo was missing in order to keep her safe. Her mother told her she couldn’t return home or she would be in huge trouble for having been in China. Hyeonseo couldn’t have imagined that her short visit to China would result in years of learning to survive in China on her own without her mother’s help.

The rest of the book contains her life in China. From the struggle of finding a job and nearly becoming a prisoner of sex trafficking to finding the love she never thought she would have. She takes her readers along with her as she learns to adjust to life in China and the hardships it brings. From hardcore investigations to dating a Western man. Her life is never settled on calm waters but rather rocking against harsh waves. Her constant fear of being discovered and sent back to Korea is what keeps her so light on her feet to the point that she moves to multiple places around the country even changing her name.  She gives a whole new perspective on freedom and its importance. She writes about how difficult it was for her to adjust to having that much freedom. Even accepting the fact that her country was not as amazing as she was taught in school. She goes as far as to call her own uncle “crazy” after talking poorly of North Korea by saying “I had never before heard my country being criticized. I thought he’d gone crazy” (Lee 107). Finally, after 12 long years of living on her own, she convinces her mother and brother to cross the border and experience life outside of North Korea.

The Girl with Seven Names is a shocking, descriptive, and catching book to read. Not only does this book open your eyes to a completely different world and culture from what most are used to it also gives the reader a chance to experience a small portion of what Hyeonseo experienced. Hyeonseo’s descriptive writing and excellent imagery are what make the book so realistic for the reader. Hyeonseo does a good job of describing her surroundings and what is going on around her. She always sets up her surroundings so that the reader can have a good understanding of what she is feeling. Like in this example she states some of the things that were around her so that her reader could picture the surroundings and feel like they were there “I stood frozen listening to this, with my basket at my feet and mothers with children jostling past me” (Lee 180). Hyeonseo’s story captivates the reader to the point they never want to put the book down. This book will create so much emotion within the reader to the point that they can relate so closely with Hyeonseo.

Anyone who reads this book will come away with a greater appreciation for not only their freedoms but also for humanity. This book does a great job at inspiring others to believe in themselves and know that your life is your own and no one can control that even in North Korea. These are the types of things that all high school-aged students should learn about. This book is a great way to expose them to the real world and help them to understand the important part they play in others' lives. This is also a great way to introduce high schoolers to different points of view and get them to think differently than what they may be used to. 

One might assume that relating to the story is out of the question. They might assume Hyeonseo’s story is difficult to relate to because it’s full of much more difficulty and trial than we could ever imagine; in a country, most of us will never step foot on. While this is true in some respects, Hyeonseo has a way of writing her story that makes it real. She shares her faults and weaknesses. Her story is not sugar-coated and even someone who has never experienced firsthand what she has will be able to understand how she felt throughout the book. She even takes that extra step to compare Korean currency to U.S dollars so that Americans can have a better understanding of the value of things in the book. All of these small steps help the reader understand her better is what makes the book so relatable. 

Some might disagree that the story is inappropriate for high schoolers and say the book is too graphic and should be read at a more mature age. They might believe that the story is too depressing for a young teen who is already going through many hormonal changes. They may even use the book to prove their point by quoting one of the more graphic parts of the book like this quote “Next to the hole of the squat toilet was a bloodied white plastic bag. Inside was a dead baby with a tiny blue-pink face” (Lee 76). They might add that this book is depressing and will only make young high schoolers more depressed about the evil things in the world. However, the age of high schoolers is also the age of brain development meaning that there is no better time for a book like this to be read. A book that will broaden their view of the world and help them to see the good and the bad. The inhumanity and humanity. It is impossible for one to recognize the good if they have never experienced the bad. This book does an exceptional job at showing the reader some of the most inhumane things you could think of and then some of the most humane things one could imagine. This book is inspiring and can open the minds and hearts of any high schooler to a whole new world of ideas. 

No book can be perfect. The Girl with Seven Names hasn’t changed that. However, this book is a page-turner and often shocks the reader with the events that take place. Some of these events are things that people couldn’t even imagine happening before reading about them in this book. It’s a story that makes you feel as if you can make a difference. We can’t choose the life that we are born into but like Hyeonseo we can choose how we live it. In conclusion, any high schooler who may be struggling with life or finds themselves scared of what may come their way in the future should read this book. It will not only help motivate them but also show them that their life isn’t as bad as they may believe it to be and it can get better.