“Too late” by Ha Jin explores the story of a political leader who interferes in a love affair between Kong Kai, a young solider, and a low-class girl, An Mali. The story takes place during a time of political uncertainty which adds tensions to Kong Kai’s choice between political leadership or love. Dialogue and other literary elements related to dialogue play a large part in establishing a theme throughout the story. The readers can see the story through the political leader’s perspective which is very interesting as this narrator is also the antagonist. Throughout the short story “Too Late”, Jin uses rhetorical questions, tone and plot to convey the central theme that it takes courage to love. One of the ways that Ha Jin conveys the theme that it takes courage to love, is through the use of rhetorical questions and some sarcasm. The story starts out with the narrator saying, “‘Who would dare to go have a look and ask if they miss their parents and siblings?’” (Jin). Through this quote the narrator establishes that many of the soldiers share …show more content…
When Kong is asked to break up with An he proclaims, “‘No, I can’t hurt her. It’s too much for me.’” (Jin). Kong displays extreme selflessness here as he jeopardizes his own future to spare the feeling of his lover. This selfless act took great courage and strength blatantly disrespect his superior in order to peruse his feelings of love. When discussing Kong’s potential promotion, the narrator states, “‘We knew that was an empty promise, for as long as he was carrying on the affair, he has no chance of being voted in.’” (Jin). It would have been much easier for Kong to find another girl later in his life and settle into his career path which was already set for him. Instead he took the risk to follow his heart and have the courage to trust that things would work out with the right