Characters
The missing woman at the center of the novel.
Who is the mom?
The country where the novel is set.
What is South Korea?
The event that causes the family to search for Mom.
What is Mom goes missing at Seoul Station?
“Your mother is missing.”
What is second-person narration?
The author of Please Look After Mom.
Who is Kyung Sook Shin?
The eldest daughter and successful writer who narrates the second-person sections.
Who is Chi-hon?
The city where Mom disappears.
What is Seoul?
The family makes this public appeal to help find Mom.
What is posting flyers?
“The heart feels like it’s being squeezed by an invisible hand.”
What is a simile?
The item that the mom wants Chi-hon to get from the smallest country in the world.
What is a rosemary rosary?
Had a fling with another woman.
Who is the father?
The family's rural hometown.
What is the countryside (Naju or a rural village)?
Chi-hon remembers this gift from Mom when she was sick.
What is a box of dried persimmons?
"Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely."
What is a metaphor or symbol?
The celebration day where Chi-hon reflects on Mom’s absence.
The person who struggles with guilt over neglecting his mother.
Who is Hyong-chol?
Where Chi-hon attends a writing conference when she hears of her mom's disappearance.
What is China?
The shocking secret the family learns about Mom’s health.
What is that she had severe headaches / possibly a stroke?
The mom represented as a bird in her narrative section.
What is magical realism?
The figure mom is compared to at the novel’s conclusion.
What is the Virgin Mary?
The person who lived in the States for a while with their family.
Who is the pharmacist daughter?
The place Hyong-chol remembers walking home from with his mother when he was a child.
The object Mom carries with her, symbolizing sacrifice and care.
What is a bundle (or cloth-wrapped bundle of medicine and food)?
What is an example of symbolism?
The number of narrative perspectives the novel uses.
What is four?