Love

Throughout his novel, Whale, Myeong-kwan thematically examines love, primarily through the characters’ romantic relationships. Toward the outset of the narrative, the author suggests that love is inextricable from hardship. In “Laura”, Geumbok leaves the fishmonger to live with Geokjeong. She decides to leave her first partner because she and “Geokjeong [are] in love, just like the fateful lovers in stories—Romeo and Juliet, Byongangsoi and Ongnyeo, Asadal and Asanyeo” (57). Myeong-kwan chooses to allude to other stories of star-crossed lovers in order to portend the tragic ending of the characters’ entanglement. Their love leads Geumbok to abandon her financial security and vicariously start a relationship with the man with the scar in order to procure food and medicine. While their love is genuine, it is also the mechanism of their demise.

Later on in the novel, Myeong-kwan expands his thematic inspection of love, in “The Monster”, when...