Pachinko
Min Jin Lee (2017)
“Four generations of a Korean family in Japan — a sweeping saga about who we are when the world refuses to see us.”
Characters in Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee · 2017 · 7 characters analyzed
Cast: Sunja, Koh Hansu, Isak, Noa, Mozasu, Solomon, Kyunghee.
Character Analysis
The novel's most enduring character precisely because Lee refuses to make her exceptional. She is not brilliant or beautiful in any extraordinary way. She is determined, loving, practical, and present. Her act of refusing Hansu's offer and accepting Isak's proposal is the novel's foundational moral act — and it costs her everything except her integrity. She survives everyone she loves. Her survival is not triumphant; it is simply real.
Direct, practical, minimally emotional in speech — reveals feeling through action (going back to work, feeding children, not speaking of grief)