River In Darkness Sparknotes

The Voyage from Murk to Luminescence

North Korean defector Masaji Ishikawa’s literary nonfiction, A River in Darkness, renders a mortifying story of his life and a momentous escape from the brutal dictatorship of North Korea. Shrugging off the propaganda, he gives us a glimpse of the horrors and hardships of the country. After being approached by the League of Koreans, Masaji’s family is convinced to leave Japan for a better life in the "promised land", North Korea, but they are persecuted. They face extreme poverty, food shortages, and brutal living conditions. He experiences the deaths of his mother, father, and daughter and is abandoned by his sister and son. Even through the dreadful events, he insists on gaining freedom. Ishikawa describes

Ishikawa exemplifies this statement when he vigorously expresses, "Look! You don't have time for this. You are getting weaker by the day. You have to get across that river! Otherwise, your family will die, and so will you." (148). He persists in using "you" to create a sense of dominance over his courteous actions. His thoughts also reveal his selflessness toward his family, such as his pity rejoinder to their hunger: "My sisters were still in school, and I'll never forget how lousy we felt not being able to support them properly. I can’t even describe the hopelessness and despair I felt after a long day of work and facing their hunger." (126). This altruistic feeling leads to the strong syntax while displaying diction: "hopelessness and despair," reflecting his loss of hope that life won’t get

"The snow glistened and sparkled, masking the desolation of the scene before me" (62). Ishikawa emphasizes "glistened", "sparked", and "desolation" to delineate his adobe. "Glistened'' and "sparkled" portray the snow to disguise the sadness and loneliness preceding it. "There’s a saying, "Sadness and gladness follow each other." As I see it, people who experience equal amounts of sadness and happiness in their lives must be incredibly blessed" (58). He conveys "sadness" to display a mood of despair to reflect his dusk situations. He also delivers the dictionaries "gladness" and "blessed" to the animate vivae. Masigi’s phraseology accentuates his transition from obscurity to