Barbara Demick Nothing To Envy Analysis

In Nothing to Envy written by Barbara Demick, the author describes North Korea as "a country that has fallen out of the developed world" (Demick 4). Through diction, Demick is attempting to demonstrate the notion that North Korea is surviving solely without interruption from the outside world. This is done by ruling the country by a totalitarian dictatorship, such as an absolute monarchy controlled by generations of the same family in pursuit of the same goal. In North Korea, each individual person is denied basic human rights in attempt to control the incoming knowledge about the world around them. They are taught to solemnly worship and abide by the rules of their supreme leader and are denied any uncontrolled access to electronics, such as movies, television, and internet.This is

If they begin to lose power and are feeling threatened, they have their army to rely on as one of their major strengths of the country. North Korea is also using their limited knowledge of their citizens as a strong advantage to maintaining their communist regime. By not allowing a candid educational system, society is unaware of the faults of the country and is taught to believe that they are living a better lifestyle. This idea is illustrated when Demick states, “as [Mi-ran’s] students were dying, she was supposed to teach them that they were blessed to be North Korean” (9). By restricting their knowledge, the people of North Korea are falsely being taught that people in other countries are living in far worse poverty than them, which then allows them to believe that they are living a better lifestyle. Barbara Demick has developed the idea that North Korea “has fallen out of the developed world” by providing several examples of life as analytical ways of thoughts and processes of North Koreans in comparison to other countries