54 pages • 1 hour read
Won-pyung Sohn, Transl. Joosun LeeAlmond
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Empathy as Unnecessary for Treating Others With Love
Yunjae’s perceived lack of empathy—and the mistreatment that comes with that perception—provides the background for the most prominent theme in the novel. If one defines empathy as the ability to feel what others feel, then Yunjae certainly lacks it, as he cannot even understand or define his own feelings, let alone others. Yunjae overcomes this gap, however, by forming his own version of love and understanding for others. Especially when contrasted with more empathetic characters who nonetheless act cruelly, this demonstrates the novel’s thesis that empathy might be useful, but it is not necessary for human connection.
Throughout the novel, other characters treat Yunjae’s lack of empathy as a personal failing that makes him less than human, including Yunjae himself. While it is true that sometimes Yunjae’s lack of empathy leads him to behave strangely toward others—as when his classmate falls, and he watches her cry instead of helping her up—it does not make him a bad person. The novel interrogates and unravels the idea that empathy is equivalent to good social behavior by contrasting Yunjae with Gon. Both boys struggle with social interactions and fitting in, but their experience of empathy undermines their mutual assumption that empathy is inherent to being a good person. Gon’s overabundance of empathy causes him to lash out at others, as he is tormented by his intense feelings. Yunjae’s lack of empathy allows him to view the world clearly and understand cruelty without emotion. The scene with the butterfly’s death is the crux of this theme’s development. Yunjae tells Gon, “Now I think [the butterfly] hurts, very much. But you look uncomfortable” (151), pointing out that Gon’s attempts to make him feel “normal” empathy is an act of self-harm. Gon believes Yunjae’s lack of empathy is something that needs to be changed, but trying to change Yunjae causes him to harm a living thing.
The boys grow closer after the scene. They acknowledge each other’s experiences and versions of connection, demonstrating that they can treat one another with love regardless of whether they experience empathy. While one could argue that Yunjae understands empathy at the novel’s end, his insistence that Gon apologizes to the butterfly shows that he clings to the rules of society to better understand humanity’s place in it. Ultimately, Yunjae and Gon balance one another out. They need one another to find a connection in a world that rejects them both for not having the right experience of empathy; they need one another to learn that empathy is not what makes us human.
Neurodiversity, Masking, and the Impact of Language
Much of Almond centers around Yunjae’s experience of being neurodivergent. He experiences both the positives and the negatives of neurodiversity, especially the negatives, such as masking and social rejection. Masking is a term typically connected to experiences of people with autism, referring to the need or desire to put up a front that allows one to present as neurotypical to others. This is a behavior often learned in childhood as a trauma response. In Yunjae’s case, his mother teaches him to mask. Neurodivergent adults often struggle to determine their identity apart from masking, something Yunjae himself experiences. Additionally, throughout the novel, Yunjae is treated harshly by others; rumors are spread about him, and he is called a “monster,” even by his grandmother. Although Yunjae insists these events do not affect him, the novel implies otherwise, suggesting that masking often affects neurodivergent people much more deeply than even they can realize.
Almond portrays masking and the impact of language with complexity. People who love Yunjae deeply, such as his mother and grandmother, are the primary sources of trauma in his life. His grandmother calls him a “monster”; his mother insists that he pretend to be “normal”; both do these harmful things out of “love,” which confuses Yunjae at times. He explicitly notes that “If that was love, I’d rather neither give nor receive any” (30), indicating the warped version of emotions he learns from his mother. His mother’s fear of how others will treat Yunjae leads her to harm Yunjae instead by demanding he hide himself and learn to pretend he is just like other people. Yunjae eventually internalizes that he must be “normal” to have value, losing his identity and any hope of feeling emotions in the process.
After his mother enters the hospital, Yunjae finally gains the freedom to be himself. Despite this freedom, he still struggles to make sense of his life, since his mother only taught him to pretend, never to function. She denied him access to the deeper, richer experiences of emotion by refusing to answer his questions and telling him to take the easy road and memorize appropriate responses. As a result, Yunjae is stuck; others have dehumanized him so thoroughly that he cannot view himself as a human as he is.
The end of the novel does not resolve this theme. Yunjae’s sudden, miraculous experience of emotion when Gon is crying over him could be read either as his alexithymia being miraculously “fixed” or as a sudden experience of unique freedom after a life of repression and masking. Regardless of how one views the ending, Yunjae’s life is structured around being neurodivergent and the suffering that often comes from viewing the world differently than others. As with many neurodivergent people, Yunjae’s family is both his greatest source of joy and his greatest tragedy. The novel’s ambiguous ending suits the complexity of neurodivergent experiences.
Change and Growth as Inevitable and Neutral
From the novel’s very beginning, Almond establishes the final key theme: that change is inevitable and neither happy nor tragic. The complexity of a life’s progression cannot be reduced to a single emotional category. While certain events within the novel are tragic—such as Gon’s disappearance as a child and the massacre on Christmas Eve—each event leads to characters changing and becoming different people in ways that are both good and bad. Yunjae’s near-neutral perspective on the world allows the novel to develop a unique theme: Change leads to growth, and because neither change nor growth can be avoided, there is no point in interpreting events as wholly good or wholly bad.
Many distinct parts of the novel explore this theme. Some events are small, like Gon’s shock at discovering that Brooke Shields has aged, and some are large, like Yunjae’s slow exploration of grief and growth after the Christmas Eve tragedy. Each event demonstrates that tragedy can lead to joy and joy can lead to tragedy. For example, Gon’s experience as a child is certainly traumatic and tragic, but it leads him to Yunjae and to a deeper friendship than either of them could have hoped to experience. Their friendship is fraught with a variety of emotions, both positive and negative; it is turbulent and intense in both hatred and love. All these experiences ultimately balance out to return the scale to neutrality. Similarly, Yunjae’s relationship with Dora ends on a flat note. She moves on, just as he does, without drama or closure. Both change and grow into different people and separate as the world and their needs demand. There is nothing either wrong or right about aging, dying, loving, and growing; all these things are inevitable. The novel thus posits a fatalistic perspective on the world born of Yunjae’s own capacity to view things as they are.
Ultimately, even after developing a new understanding of emotion, Yunjae still holds this neutral view of the world. His final wish is to experience the world as it is in the best way he can. His mother’s return and Gon’s salvation are fraught with complex emotions on both sides of the scale; to reduce either experience to pure positivity or negativity would cheapen the human experience. Yunjae’s ability to see the world neutrally is ultimately shown to be a strength rather than a weakness, as it allows him to experience the endless path of human life with full awareness.
