Chapter one is written from the perspective of Dong-ho, a middle school student. Additionally, it is written in from a second-person point-of-view. Why do you think Han Kang chose this technique for the first chapter?

As you read, do you notice any differences as to how boys and men are physically described versus girls and women? Are the physical appearances of each sex described equally? If not, which sex seems to have more attention paid to the way they look? 

The citizens of Gwangju sing the national anthem and “Arirang”, a traditional Korean song used to unite the people. What does this tell you about the citizens of Gwangju?

What symbols do you encounter in the first chapter? Flowers, the colour white, rain, and darkness are all repeated, but do you think they could stand in for any larger, more abstract ideas or themes? Do any of these symbols change over the chapter and, if so, what might this change suggest?

There are lots of uses of consonance, alliteration, and assonance in this chapter. For example, Dong-ho describes "the right side of [a woman's" skull completely caved in, seemingly the work of a club." What effect do you think this has? What other examples of 'sound devices' can you see?

Time is an important theme introduced in this chapter, where Kang highlights the effect of time in addition to jumping back and forth in time within Dong-ho's narrative. What examples can you see where the effects of time are depicted or where the narrative changes in time? Are the past and present, living and dead, connected through these changes in time? Why do you think these choices have been made?

The narrator or other characters often discuss violence with a matter-of-fact tone. What examples can you see of this? Why do you think such horrific things are spoken about in such a unemotional way?

What examples of class do you see in this chapter? What class do you think the protestors of Gwangju predominantly are in the novel and what evidence do you have of this? What social class do you think certain characters (like Dong-ho, Jeong-mi and Jeong-dae, Eun-sook, and Seon-ju) belong to?

How are the soldiers and military government depicted in this chapter? How does Kang juxtapose two collective groups: the soldiers and the protestors? What larger philosophical points might Kang be making?

How are the corpses of dead protestors described and what effects do stylistic choices have on such descriptions? For example, what effect does the narrator's diction in describing coffins being "shoved together" with many "dead bodies crammed" in the hall, comparing it to a "mass rally of corpses", have? Or what about the simile calling the young men recently shot by the army as "crumpled like puppets whose strings have been cut"? 

What examples of specific violence shocked you in this chapter?

This chapter is from the perspective of a dead Jeong-dae told in the first person. Why do you think that Han Kang chose this perspective for this chapter?

How does the handling of dead bodies differ from the ways the dead bodies were treated in the first chapter? Can you find any specific examples? What does this tell you about the military?

In this chapter, the narrator often juxtaposes natural imagery with deathly imagery. What examples of this can you find and why do you think this choice has been made? What is its significance?

The narrator, the dead Jeong-dae, uses rhetorical questions asking soldiers "Why did you kill me? Why did you kill my sister? What did you do to her?" What impact do these rhetorical questions (which do not expect an answer) have within the context?

What examples of 'sound devices' can you find and what effects do they have? For example, the narrator describes the tower of corpses as "festering flesh now fused into a single mass," and describes wanting his soul to leave by saying he "wanted to shuck off my body as a snake sheds its skin."

Through the use of anaphora, the narrator repeats "if I could..." and lists desires. What impact does this have?

What shocking revelations are revealed in this chapter? Why might it be important, for example, that we hear about certain deaths through the narrator being aware (as a ghost himself) instead of directly? How might not being explicitly told or shown the truth about people dying reflect the reality at the time?

This chapter includes a poem, beginning with "I think of the festering wound...". Why do you think this poem has been included, what is the effect and significance of its inclusion, and what do poetic devices add to the themes of the novel?

This chapter, like the rest of the novel, are told from the perspective of characters after the events at Gwangju. Why do you think Kang has told the story in such a way?

To what extent was the violence inflicted on Eun-sook linked to her gender? Justify your response. 

What do you think is significant about the fountain in this chapter? Why does Eun-sook seem so frustrated at it being turned back on?

Why do you think Eun-sook does not like to eat meat, particularly after the sight of it being cooked? What visual imagery in the description of cooked barbecue might suggest that she is haunted by events from Gwangju five years earlier?

How is masculinity depicted in this chapter? 

When Eun-sook walks into the provincial office, she notes the "murderer's framed photograph" hanging up, likely referring to the president Chun Doo-hwan. This was five years after the massacre. How must it have felt to have had to hang this photo up at work or see it in other offices after everything that had happened?

Did you learn anything new about Dong-ho? How might fracturing his story, telling it in pieces from different characters, emphasise the nature of what happened at the time? 

How else is the government depicted in this chapter? What is the significance of censorship in this chapter? How are military and police shown, and in what ways do these people and censorship keep the oppressive status quo?

Eun-sook now works for a publishers which are publishing a play. This play is a narrative placed within the narrative of the chapter, within the novel. Placing a story within a story is known as mise-en-abyme. What effect do you think this has in the novel? 

Additionally, regarding the play, what is the significance of it being censored, yet still performed in a way where the audience cannot hear the dialogue for censored scenes, only Eun-sook, who remembers the words and mouths them to herself?

What is the significance of the non-fiction book analysing the psychology of crowds which Eun-sook has been working on? On one page, there is an excerpt from this book. Thematically, why is this very important to the novel and the larger philosophical questions it asks? How does it link to the historical context?

This chapter is set a whole decade after the events of chapter one. It is told from the perspective of a prisoner who knew Jin-su, the older boy from chapter one. The narrator is speaking to a professor. What is important about the perspective of this chapter? How are the prisoner and professor different, and what might be significant about this difference?

This chapter depicts some of the torture and violence inflicted on those arrested for protesting the authoritarian government. Worst of all, all of the techniques used here were really carried out in real life. Which images did you find the most shocking?

In describing these horrific acts, what stylistic devices did you notice to depict the violence or the pain? What were their effects?

All of the chapters in the novel begin in-medias-res, or in the middle of things. What is the effect of this? How does it leave the reader and why might this be important?

How does the narrator's matter-of-fact tone add to his description of what happened? For example, he says that "[the soldiers] stamped on my back with their army boots. Only until I was just on the point of losing consciousness; then they would flip me over, and trample my shins instead." If the narrator would have used a more sensationalised tone, how would the chapter be different?

How does the narrator depict the sense of community and oneness in this chapter? How does his group differ from the group of soldiers? Why is this significant?

How does the narrator describe what the torture did to the men, and him specifically? How does he depict being humanised?

In general, how are the military depicted in this chapter? What other connections to other worldwide events does Han Kang make in this chapter and, as a result, how does the novel comment on the brutality of mankind in times of war?

When talking of losing his humanity at the hands of brutish soldiers, the narrator uses asyndeton. For instance, he explains that the prisoners were "reduced to an insect, a ravening beast, a lump of meat[.] To be degraded, damaged, slaughtered - is this the essential fate of humankind?" How does the incorrect grammatical structure reflect the uncivilised nature of the content?

How does Jin-su differ from chapter one, to the flashbacks in this chapter, until his eventual suicide? In what ways does his character serve to highlight the psychological impacts of war?

It is in this chapter that we discover exactly how Dong-ho died. Was this imagined how you pictured his death? What effect does this particular depiction of death have on the novel? What effect does it have that we learn of the death in this way?

This chapter is set two decades after the original events of chapter one. It is told from the perspective of Seon-ju, the older girl who worked with Dong-ho in chapter one. She predominantly tells her narrative in the second person. Why do you think this is?

Seon-ju breaks her narrative into repeated sections: "Now", "Uprising", and "You Remember". In doing so, time shifts between the present and the past. Why do you think Han Kang has written a chapter with this disjointed structure which goes back and forth?

In 2002, Seon-ju describes the small and stuffy office room in which she works. What might this space symbolise?

Similarly, she describes her backpack, carrying the tapes that Yoon has given her to record her accounts of her imprisonment. What might this backpack symbolise?

In the sections titled "Uprising," Seon-ju describes the sound of a wet towel from a door handle dripping on the floor. As the chapter progresses, she explains that even after taking this towel down, she still heard the sound, believing them to be footprints, which caused feelings of fear. What might this sound symbolise?

Seon-ju is described as androgynous (having both masculine and feminine physical features). What other ways does she subvert traditional heteronormative femininity and why do you think this is?

In this chapter, Seon-ju touches on the brutality she, as a woman, faced by the soldiers during her imprisonment. The details are extremely shocking, but are not described in great detail. Instead, via the use of rhetorical questions and anaphora of the phrase "is it possible to bear witness", Seon-ju touches on the sexual violence she experienced and its psychological effects. She also uses some technical language, achieving a more matter-of-fact tone. Why do you think Kang wrote this in such a way?

In general, how does this chapter depict the relationships between women? Are there examples of female solidarity, and how is this received? Are the examples of internalised misogyny or women criticising other women? 

How does this chapter depict the oppression of women?

This final chapter is told three decades after the events of chapter one. Again, consider why Han Kang has written the novel in such a way, with characters giving their perspective years after the Gwangju massacre, yet all tied in some way to these events, usually through Dong-ho and his death. 

In this chapter, the translator, Deborah Smith, has used diction associated with Northern, British dialects in order to indicate working class status. Examples include her describing herself as "doddery" having a "slog" in her throat, yet not wanting to "kick up a fuss." Can you find any other examples, or examples from other chapters?

In this chapter, Dong-ho's mother speaks directly to Dong-ho. What does this suggest about her character and the victim's families of the Gwangju massacre?

Similarly, she sees Dong-ho walking in the streets 30 years later and follows him so far that she struggles to make it home. Symbolically, why might this be important?

Like all of the chapters which offer a perspective after the events of chapter one, how does chapter six add to the themes of trauma and survivor's guilt, in addition to depicting the lasting effects of such horrific events on those involved?

How were different family members specifically impacted by Dong-ho's death? 

How does Dong-ho's mother describe the president? Conversely, how do the soldiers and police treat her? In what ways is conflict depicted in this chapter?

Coldness, and in particular the iciness of Dong-ho's mother's bones, is an important symbol in this chapter. She doesn't sweat in summer and cannot feel the heat of the newly laid tarmac as she walks on it. What might this suggest?

Kang's epilogue is her own perspective of how she came to write Human Acts. How does finishing the book in such a way develop some of the novel's themes? What other effects do you think the epilogue being written in this way, similar to other chapters, has?

Kang includes various symbols in this epilogue, like her footprints, flowers, and the cold. What are significant about these symbols? How do they develop and explore certain themes or larger ideas?

In what ways does Kang exhibit survivor's guilt? In what ways is she shocked at her contemporaries in Seoul and how does she differ? Why might this be significant?

Kang describes Gwangju when she returns. The gym floor is open with "exposed earth" and near to her old home is a quarry. How might these openings in the earth be read metaphorically as scars?

What other real life examples of oppression does Kang explicitly mention in this epilogue? How does this add to the novel's larger themes of humanity and violence?

Can you interpret Kang's dreams? Try using Freud's method from his famous works The Interpretation of Dreams. How do these dreams help to characterise Kang?

Kang includes the story of an interview with a survivor who compares surviving such horrors to radioactive poisoning. Can you elaborate on this analogy? What is implied?

What examples of state violence, propaganda, and other oppressive tactics are described in this chapter?

Kang includes examples of violence in this chapter. What examples do you see? Additionally, she includes acts of bravery, defiance in the face of brutality, and acts of goodness. What examples can you find? How does the latter add a more optimistic tone towards themes of humanity?