Short Story Anthology - Monday 25 January 2021

Short Story Anthology
     Monday 25 January 2021

Re-read the story ‘Korea’

‘Korea’ – key observations

‘Korea’ – key observations
• First person narrative then encourages sympathy for the narrator, a teenage boy
  who is about to leave school and is fishing with his father
• We are dropped into the story mid-conversation, with the son asking about his
  father having witnessed an execution while imprisoned at Mountjoy for fighting
  against Great Britain in the Irish War of Independence
• We see contrasting attitudes of soldiers when confronted by death – some are
  stoic and unemotional, while some crumble. It seems the father was perhaps on
  the verge of execution, but avoided it
• The father has clearly been traumatised by his experiences, and it has altered his
  perceptions and attitude towards live and death – for example his honeymoon, a
  time for celebration, was blighted by memories of seeing an execution in a very
  visceral description
• The father is an antagonist despite his earlier suffering, and tension and
  awkwardness permeate their fishing trip together
• Conversation turns to the boy’s plans when leaving school – his father has a keen
  interest in this, before suggesting America is the land of opportunity
• The narrator is suspicious of his father’s intentions as he thinks this is unlike him

‘Korea’ – key observations
• Father is resentful that he may soon lose his fishing licence, so it
  clearly concerned about his livelihood
• The boy overhears a conversation about payment to families whose
  sons fought (or died) for America in the war (Irish people could do
  this) – this seems a good way of making money
• This results in an epiphany for the young boy, who now suspects his
  father wishes for him to do the same, and to potentially die so they
  can receive compensation
• This epiphany alters the narrator’s view of the world, and his dad
  quickly returns to the subject of America
• The boy is non-committal on his intentions but shares with the reader
  that he is braced to murder his father if required
• The author demonstrates here how a world of war and violence can
  corrupt all relationships and spoil people’s perceptions of the most
  sacred bond - family

‘Korea’ – key quotes
• Complete the key quotes activity on the sheet provided

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“You saw an execution then too, didn’t you” Son’s
question to father

Clear sense that the father has witnessed quite
dramatic situations, which may have distorted his
perceptions of life and death. He is not openly
communicative, and speaks only when prompted
by his son

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“He thought it was he who’d be next, for after a few
days they moved him to the cell next to the prison
yard” – father

The father believed that he was on the verge of
execution as his cell had been moved. This again
shows how the father may be desensitized to the
nature of death

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“They blindfolded the boy, but the man refused the
blindfold…stayed as he was, chewing very slowly.
He had his hands in the pocket” – memory of
executed prisoners
This memory presents two types of people – the
young who are petrified of death, and the more
experienced man who is as casual as possible.
Executed prisoners may be blindfolded to prevent
people seeing their eyes, or to prevent them from

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“As the volley rang, the boy tore at his tunic over
the heart, as if to pluck out the bullets, and the
buttons of the tunic began to fly into the air”
The panic of the boy and fear of death are crystal
clear here as he tries to remove the bullets in a
futile way. It makes his death appear even more
dramatic and even absurd

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“The officer dispatched the boy with one shot from
the revolver…he pumped five bullets in rapid
succession into the man”
The officer finished the young boy off mercifully
because he was obedient and accepted his
control, whereas the older man is finished off quite
brutally, showing the anger in the officer at the
man’s defiance

‘Korea’ – key quotes
On father’s honeymoon “I looked down and saw
the furze pods bursting, and the way they burst in
all directions seemed shocking like the buttons
when he started to tear at his tunic. I couldn’t get it
out of my mind all day.”
The experience has left a firm mark on the father,
reliving the experience and corrupting something
which should have been a big celebration. His
past has leaked into his family life in a significant

‘Korea’ – key quotes
“Before, if I asked him about the war, he’d draw
fingers across his eyes as if to tear a spider web
away”
Further examples of the father having been
traumatized. It is like he has repressed the
feelings, and has to access them again directly to
answer his son’s questions

‘Korea’ – key quotes

“The river was dead silent”
Quote points to awkwardness between the father
and son, but also gives a sense of foreboding of
what the father may be trying to do later on

‘Korea’ – key quotes

Son on exams “If the result is good, I’ll have
choices. If it’s not, there won’t be choices. I’ll have
to take what I can get”
Narrator is at a crossroads in his life. He has the
potential to make something of his life, but this
depends on the exam outcomes. The father did
not have these same opportunities. This shows
the importance of education

‘Korea’ – key quotes

“There was something calculating in his face”
The father is clearly portrayed as the antagonist in
the story, and the son can see that he is working
through an idea in his mind. There is a clear theme
of distrust and deception here.

‘Korea’ – key quotes

Dad on America: “it’s the land of opportunity, isn’t it,
a big expanding country? There’s no room for
ambition in this poky place”
On the surface, the father has aspirations for the
son, a desire to see him have the opportunities that
he never had himself, but it is part of a bigger plot
that he is engaged with.

‘Korea’ – key quotes

“I was wary of the big words. They were not in his
own voice”

The son is suspicious of what the father is saying
to him and feels his is being disingenuous. He
thinks his father has selfish motives, not selfless
ones

‘Korea’ – key quotes

“The guilt of leaving came: I was discarding his life
to assume my own”

There is a sense of conscience in the son, and he
feels bad at the thought of leaving this world
behind. This shows he is a character with more
morality and selflessness than his father

‘Korea’ – key quotes

Dad’s conversation: “They got ten thousand dollars
when Luke was killed…They get two hundred and
fifty dollars a month each for Michael and Sam
while they’re serving”

Father discusses another man’s sons in the US
army in purely financial terms, even the one who
has died. He is a mercenary character, who does
not feel worried about what may happen to his son,
perhaps as a result of his own experiences in his

‘Korea’ – key quotes

Boy as he overheard this “I closed the door and
stood in the darkness, in the smell of shit and piss
and the warm fleshy smell of worms crawling in too
little clay”

As a result of the implications behind his father’s
words, the perceptions of the narrator have totally
changed Everything has been corrupted and
turned foul, and linked to images of death

‘Korea’ – key quotes

Boy “I knew my youth had ended”
This is an epiphany for the son, a clear moment of
realisation that his innocent world has collapsed
around him and he is entering the universe of
selfish adults instead

‘Korea’ – key quotes

“I’d never felt so close to him before…each move
he made I watched as closely as if I too had to
prepare myself to murder”
Strangely, this has created a strange sort of
intimacy between them, but the son is braced for
potentially killing his father if required. Their
relationship has irrevocably changed now

Task – All stories
• Go to the grid resource, and identify how each of the 3 stories
  engages with the key themes and ideas
• Try to fill in at least 2-3 points for each story and record on the
  table
• If you prefer not to use the grid, bullet points will be fine instead

• Please submit this work to me by 4pm today and I will send
  some collated answers for you to add to yours.