Bill Chang
HSTAS 482
H. Nam
Review Paper
With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night Review With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night is a Korean novel written by Lim Chul-Woo during the times of War in Korea. This short story is written in such a way that readers can relate to the pain that the victims of the Korean War felt. Lim tells the story with such detail so that the readers feel like they are actually there observing. The story opens with a soldier in the company of rebels in the woods outside the town in which he grew up. The town was evacuated more than two months prior, but that night the soldier and his company saw a light. The soldier thought that it could be from his own house due to the fact that it was in the same area and it was the anniversary of the death of his father. He thought to himself that it is his own mother coming back to look for him and to pay her respects to her husband. The story then switches to the viewpoint of the mother of the soldier in the woods. She has taken the risk to return to her village even though it was forbidden for her to return. She was clinging to the hope that her son might return; clinging so much that when she evacuated her town, she did not even board up the windows and doors like much of the rest of the town. Many of the villagers even went as far as to burn down the homes that they were leaving behind. Lim continues the story in the mother’s point of view. She is in her home with meager portions of food for the tribute to her deceased husband. During the war, these meager portions of food were a luxury. Grains and Vegetables were hard to come by and the mother went through the trouble to save them. Soon after she makes the food, she hears a noise outside her house, thinking it is her son returning, she goes out to check and she sees the town’s well known “crazy-woman”. The woman is pregnant, and even though the mother does not know anything about the woman, she has the compassion to let this woman in and shelter her. At this point, Lim changes the point of view of the story to Lieutenant Gang. He is in charge of the squad hiding out over the town. He was given the report that a woman had sneaked into the village and that was where the communist guerrillas most frequently appeared. As the lieutenant looked up at the moon, a past memory flashed. The lieutenant was also a victim of the war. His wife was killed by communists and at the time, she was pregnant with the lieutenant’s first child. Soon after this memory, the squad spots a figure emerging from the hills. As soon as the figure starts running, unexpected shots are fired and the lieutenant orders the squad to start firing. The body falls, and Lim reveals that the figure was the soldier. He had seen the light and was trying to return to his mother. With his last breath, he utters “Ah, Mother” and it was at this very moment that the child “crazy-woman” was born in his house. This story represents the issues of the Korean War. Lim uses the setting, events in the story, and the different characters to show the readers what the people of Korea had suffered through. Lim uses the setting of the evacuated town to show that the most important thing the people of Korea had to give up was their lives. The government called for evacuations of many towns. In the story, there were people that burned the houses that they left; a clear inclination of never returning to the town that they evacuated. Even from a different point of view, the soldier in the woods had to leave his life and his only mother behind to join the guerrillas in order to survive. The town itself is a symbol of loss in the eyes of the villagers that once lived there; however, the events that occurred in the town are more effective in transmitting the Lim’s message. The events in the story itself help Lim touch the hearts of the readers. The loss of the husband in the war shows how deeply the Korean families were affected. The mother had lost her husband, and she said that “She did not receive so much as a piece of his bone or a strand of his hair” (24). She was told that the man she had loved died in a telegram. His last words to her were that he was going to return after six months and with that, “he walked over the brow of the hill”(24). When Lim uses events such as these in the story, it is easy for the readers to relate to what is happening. The readers subconsciously told to imagine themselves in the shoes of the mother. What if the reader had to let their loved one leave and was only told about their death with one single sheet of paper in the mail. Lim’s choice of including such events in the story allows her to connect with her readers on a deeper level. Lim is trying to get the readers to understand the effects of the war. She does this because the impacts of the war were so great on Korean society. This story is very effective in showing the readers how the war shaped the people and their way of life. In the story, it is also very clear that she wants the readers to understand that war is inherently a negative event. The four main characters of this story all have different backgrounds, but they all share the same issue of death and loss. The mother had lost her husband and her child, the “crazy-woman” had lost her life and sanity before arriving at the town, Lieutenant Gang had lost his wife and unborn first child, and finally the soldier in the woods had lost his father and life and even at the last chance to be reunited with his mother, he lost his own life. The fact that Lim has these characters from such different backgrounds share these feelings is the proof of the effect of war. War causes people to lose the things they care about; mainly their loved ones. The characters all have a different background. They all came from different places; however, they all have lost someone they hold dear. The two main viewpoints are from the guerrillas and the military. If the readers look from the guerrilla’s point of view, the soldier in the woods lost his father in the war, and he also lost his way of life in the village that was evacuated. On the other hand, the military’s point of view is characterized by Lieutenant Gang. He had lost his wife and his first unborn child due to the war. These two opposing sides are essential to the cause of the war and yet, both sides have lost. In addition to this, if the villagers are taken into account, the mother of the soldier also has lost her husband and by the end of the story, her son too. Everything in the story seems to point to the fact that Lim feels that war only has negative impacts. In examining if Lim has “succeeded” in this work, I believe that she has. This work of literature has the depth to pull readers in and the imagery to allow readers to believe that they are a part of the story. The story outlines the feelings of the villagers in the Korean War. The people were confused and many people from both sides were harmed. In addition to the casualties from both sides, there were many innocents harmed as portrayed by the soldier in the woods. He did not side with the guerrillas nor did he side with the military. His only reason for following the guerrillas was for survival and it was because of that reason that he was shot in the end. With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night clearly shows the harms of the war. With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night brings in characters with a vast multitude of backgrounds to the evacuated village. The characters all share the same burden of a long lost love, yet they are on different sides of the war. This in itself clearly shows the effects of war. In addition to this, Lim puts the story a town that was evacuated. The boarded and burned down houses in the town symbolize how the villagers had to give up their ways of life and in some cases they could not even return. Finally, the events of the story give the readers a clear idea of the devastating effects of the war. The soldier in the woods was not at fault, the lieutenant was not at fault, and nor were the guerrillas at fault. Lim chooses not to tell the readers who shot the soldier first because no one is at fault. The war is the only reason that everything is happening. The war is the cause of the pain and suffering of all these people and this story is deemed successful because the readers are left with the question “Why war?”