Summary
Chapter 4 is entitled "Birds." Disoriented amid the storm, Kyungha continues on her way to Inseon's house. The freezing and empty streets leave an impression on Kyungha. Even as she deals with the immediate danger of her situation, Kyungha meditates on the crystalline structure of snowflakes, and how Inseon once said the snow reminds her of a girl searching for something unspecified in a schoolyard.
Kyungha tries to flag down a truck driver to no avail. All the shops in a small village are shuttered. At the next bus stop, Kyungha nods and bows a greeting to an elderly lady who is also waiting. The woman returns Kyungha's gaze with a neutral look. Overall, the lady reminds Kyungha of Inseon's mother due to her "air of indifference mingled with subdued kindness." Kyungha considers speaking to her.
Kyungha recalls how easily Inseon bonded with elderly women when the friends traveled together. Many of Inseon's films center on older women, and this resonance stems from the fact that Inseon's mother was older than most when she had Inseon. In one of Inseon's films, she interviewed a woman who lived alone in a remote jungle village in Việt Nam. The woman consented to speak about the traumas she endured. Further memories play in Kyungha's mind as she waits for the bus. For example, Inseon once shared with Kyungha that when she ran away to Seoul, her mother came across her apparition sitting in their kitchen on Jeju. According to Inseon, her mother made her a bowl of juk.
Just when Kyungha thinks the situation is futile, the storm begins to lessen. A migraine begins to make her nauseous, and she tries to call Inseon to let her know that it will be impossible to follow through with the journey. However, someone on the other line tells Kyungha to call later. The bus finally arrives and she boards, asking the driver if he stops in Secheon-ri. Kyungha forgets the name of the stop where she is supposed to get off. When the elderly woman gets off at her stop, Kyungha feels a strong sense of loss.
In Chapter 5 ("Remaining Light"), Kyungha falls in the snow on her way to Inseon's house. She drifts in and out of consciousness as the extreme cold settles on her. Kyungha remembers another one of Inseon's documentaries in which she interviewed the family of a woman who, at 16 years old, made her way across the desolate plains of Manchuria to return to a militia camp. On the way, the woman lost several toes to frostbite. The question of why she alone from her group survived became a roaring flame inside of her, one that kept her from freezing to death.
During the night, Kyungha wakes to the light of the moon and manages to find her way to Inseon's workshop. The lights have remained on since Inseon's neighbors rushed her to the hospital. Inside, she finds the logs that Inseon has been working on for their collaborative project. In Chapter 6 ("Trees"), Kyungha sees the dried blood and other evidence of the accident, and she also realizes that Inseon decided to scale the figures to be larger than life. A palm tree with waving fronds startles Kyungha before she figures out it is a tree and not a person.
Inside the house, Ama's water and food bowl are empty. Ama herself lies lifeless next to them. Kyungha buries her and wonders what would have needed to happen differently to prevent Ama's death. Scenes from one of Inseon's documentaries about the Jeju 4.3 Massacre in the late 1940s play in Kyungha's mind. She feels sick at the intense pain coming over her. The snowstorm outside causes the power to go out. Kyungha curls up in Inseon's bed and, in her feverish state, feels that she will die.
Analysis
Memories and echoes of the past color Kyungha's perception of her present circumstances. In "Birds," Kyungha repeatedly notices how the elderly woman at the bus stop reminds her of Inseon's mother and also of a woman interviewed in one of Inseon's documentaries. Memories of these women overlay the present, and a detail such as the snowy scenery or a gesture from the elderly woman sends Kyungha into her ruminations. The woman that Inseon interviewed in Viêt Nam consented to talk about the violence perpetrated by Korean soldiers between 1964 and 1973. As the storm in the narrative's present day begins to abate, leaving a calmer atmosphere, Han does not yet delve into the details shared by the interviewee in the documentary. She leaves the narrative suspended for the time being.
Another example of time functioning differently occurs when Kyungha projects what will occur to Ama's body. After burying the bird, Kyungha thinks about how "in a few hours, Ama's body will have frozen. It will remain preserved until February, at which point it will rapidly decompose. Until it is a handful of feathers and perforated bones" (Chapter 6). Kyungha sees all this happening in her mind's eye like a time-lapse. Not only does the future press itself on Kyungha and make itself apparent, but the past as well. Haunting scenes from Inseon's documentaries play in Kyungha's mind, and at the end of Chapter 6, she lives inside of them. The doors and windows rattling in the snowstorm signal an intruder coming to drag Kyungha out of the house and execute her.
The snowstorm blurs the distinction between dreams, memories, and reality. Kyungha wonders if all the shops are closed because of the storm or because it's a Sunday. As she stands beside an elderly woman at the bus stop, she is gripped by the fear that touching the woman would cause her to disappear. Han layers multiple timelines into the narrative. This, alongside Kyungha's fixations on specific details (such as the weight of snowflakes and birds), creates a deeply contemplative tone. Han does not seek to strike the reader with shocking passages and language. Instead, the novel works in subtle ways to give the reader a sense of Kyungha's impression of the world. For instance, Kyungha recalls tracing in pencil the outline of Inseon and Ama's shadow on the wall. While in another novel this might be meaningless, here it carries weight because it shows Kyungha's fixation on unusual details, as well as illustrating the kind of friendship she has with Inseon.
Once Jeju residents perceive that Kyungha is not from there, they treat her differently. For example, the bus driver heading to Inseon's village speaks to Kyungha in Seoul-mal, and she senses "a distancing in his changed tone" (Chapter 4). Though Kyungha asked Inseon to teach her the dialect used on the island, Kyungha still comes across as an outsider. Due to having their "own language structures, sociocultural backgrounds, beliefs, and religious practice," the people of Jeju developed their own unique culture distinct from the mainland (Dos Santos et al.).
Kyungha arrives too late to save Ama, and must decide how to go about caring for the bird's body. Kyungha takes this ritual very seriously. She looks through Inseon's collection of scarves and handkerchiefs until she finds the right one: white with embroidered violets. Ama's death touches Kyungha as if the bird's life force transfers inside Kyungha. This is the second instance during her time on Jeju that she feels inexplicable grief. The first occurred when the elderly woman got off the bus. Something about being on Jeju transgresses the normal boundaries that regulate Kyungha's emotions. The things she witnesses touch her deeply, and—to her perplexity—cause tears to leak from her eyes and spill onto her wounds.
