Kyungha
The novel is told mostly through Kyungha's first-person point of view. A historian and writer, Kyungha's life unraveled after she researched a historical massacre that took place in Korea. She remains reticent about a family estrangement that resulted from this breakdown, and holes up in a new apartment outside of Seoul. When Kyungha's old friend Inseon texts her out of the blue, Kyungha immediately follows through with Inseon's request that she travel to Jeju Island in an attempt to save Inseon's pet bird. Thus begins a quixotic journey that ends in both failure and possibility.
Kyungha can be characterized as a deeply sensitive person unable to cope with the horrors of what humans are capable of. She experiences recurring nightmares and chronic debilitating pain. At various points in We Do Not Part, Kyungha questions whether she has crossed the threshold separating life and death. That distinction becomes obsolete since the dead have such an important presence in the novel. Regardless, Kyungha joins Inseon in attempting to bear witness to historical atrocities.
Inseon
Like Kyungha, Inseon leads a mostly isolated existence after being damaged by historical atrocities. After working for years as a documentary filmmaker, Inseon abruptly switched tracks and became a carpenter. While cutting wood for a project that Kyungha originally proposed, Inseon accidentally severs her fingers and is rushed to a hospital in Seoul. It is there that she reaches out to Kyungha and sets off the main events in the novel.
Inseon's mother and aunt survived the massacres that killed 30,000 Jeju residents in the late 1940s, but the trauma left a lasting impact that carried over into the next generation(s). Inseon takes up the mantle of research that her mother left behind, and her apparition on Jeju Island shares these findings with Kyungha. The two damaged women pass a candle back and forth as they attempt to reckon with historical atrocities.
Ama
Ama is Inseon's beloved pet budgie, a species of small parakeet. As soon as Inseon regains consciousness after her accident, she messages Kyungha to request that Kyungha go immediately to Jeju and save Ama (who cannot survive without water and food for prolonged periods of time). Kyungha arrives too late and buries Ama's body, only to later wake up and find Ama alive, chirping, and flitting around the room. Ami (Inseon's other deceased bird) also makes an appearance, and their shadows seem to have as much presence and substance as their bodies.
Jeongsim
In Han Kang's Nobel Lecture, she states that she considers Inseon's mother to be the true protagonist of We Do Not Part. Han describes Jeongsim as "she who, having survived the massacres on Jeju, has fought to recover even a fragment of her loved one’s bones so that she can hold a proper funeral. She who refuses to stop mourning. She who bears pain and stands against oblivion. Who does not bid farewell."
Jeongsim had Inseon later in life and so treated her as a sister. As a teenager, Inseon felt intense disgust and hatred for what she felt was her mother's weakness (the lingering impacts of trauma), and ran away as a result. Through a dream vision, Jeongsim knew when her daughter was hurt. They reconciled, and Inseon returned to Jeju years later to care for her ailing mother (who was in the throes of dementia). Upon Jeongsim's death, Inseon began researching her mother's familial history and the broader history of the Jeju Massacre.
The Dead
The dead have a palpable presence in We Do Not Part. Kyungha and Inseon attempt to look directly at the brutalities perpetrated on Jeju Island and mainland Korea in the late 1940s. As a result, they bridge timelines that allow for the multiplicity of truth. On Jeju alone, 30,000 people were exterminated in the name of anticommunism. This indiscriminate killing was a collective punishment that altered Jeju Island and its residents forever, as evidenced by Inseon's own family.
