Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea

Key facts

Author: Guy Delisle

Illustrator: Guy Delisle, Fabrice (two pages)

Translator: Helge Dascher

Genre: Graphic novel, memoir

Release year: 2004

Original language: Canadian French

Key aspects

• Purpose: Provide an insightful, entertaining glimpse into the North Korean culture and society, from the view of an outsider

  • Thus creating a unique perspective on an otherwise closed and secretive society

  • Highlighting the difficulties and challenges of cross-cultural communication and navigating unfamiliar arenas

• Target audience: Western adults interested in North Korea and international relations

• Relationship to the reader:

  • We gain a relatively close relationship with Delisle which is filled with empathy and understanding

  • This is largely due to him being the first person narrator of the novel → the reader sees North Korea and his experiences and struggles there from his perspective

    • We gain a greater understanding of who he is and what he believes in

    • He also gives us a significant sense of place through his detailed descriptions of his surroundings and the people he engage with, which makes the reader feel as if they are there with him

      • A sense of immediacy and intimacy

Summary

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea is a memoir of a period in Guy Delisle’s life where he visited North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang. He was there for a business trip as he worked as the liaison between Protécréa (French animation firm) and the Scientific Educational Korea (SEK) Studio. The work focuses on his experiences during his visit which lasted for two months. He grappled with the difficulties of outsourcing and totalitarianism while there.

The novel begins when Delisle arrives in Pyongyang and brings in more items than he was originally authorized to bring. These include a copy of George Orwell’s 1984, CDs of Aphex Twin, cigarettes and cognac. He is there to work at SEK Studio on adapting the Corto Maltese comics, where he meets former colleagues of his and foreign diplomats and businessmen. He stays at the Yanggakdo International Hotel.

Throughout his stay he experiences North Korean culture and notes his different observations and reflections. He is accompanied by his guide to see a massive statue of Kim Il-sung, the Pyongyang Metro, the Arch of Triumph, the International Friendship Exhibition, the Juche Tower, the Diplomatic Club, etc. During such visits, Delisle notices how there are no disabled or elderly people there, tightrope walking, North Korean music propaganda, nearly-expired water from the South, kimjongilia, the cult of personality of the North Korean leaders and similar things. All of this leads him to increasingly criticize the North Korean regime and the oppression people face there. He starts seeing how extremely brainwashed most citizens in Pyongyang are and how much control the government has over the individual. An example of this is when he asks his guide why there are no disabled people out in public, and the guide genuinely believes all children of the “Korean race” are born healthy, strong and intelligent.

Themes

• Totalitarianism

  • Overall, the work seems to criticize the totalitarian state in North Korea by depicting its oppressive nature and the negative effect it has on the people

  • Delisle particularly criticizes the regime’s control and manipulation of its citizens through state-sanctioned propaganda, censorship and surveillance

• Identity

  • Grapples with what identity is, how it is constructed and how culture and the people you surround yourself with affects it

  • Delisle struggles with his own sense of self when in an unfamiliar and frankly hostile environment

  • The North Korean identity is also explored and how the regime attempts to suppress individuality and uniqueness

• Cultural differences

  • Between North Korea and the Western world (from the perspective of a Westerner)

  • Cultural dissonance and alienation

• Understanding and connection

  • Delisle attempts to understand North Korean culture and society throughout the work

  • This highlights the difficulties of cross-cultural communication whether that is due to a language barrier, differences in values, etc.

Literary, linguistic and rhetorical devices

• Humor

  • Used as a coping mechanism by Delisle as he navigates the unfamiliar and even absurd new environment

  • Humor is used as a way of criticizing the North Korean government and its restrictions and regulations

    • Through making the readers laugh at it, he also makes them think critically about the regime and the logical fallacies surrounding totalitarianism

• Irony

  • Used to underline the absurdity and contradictions of the North Korean government → government propaganda and totaliatarianism’s effects on everyday life

  • Example: when Delisle notes how North Korean citizens are taught that their country is a utopia, while they struggle with basic necessities like food and electricity

• Satire

  • Closely connected with irony and humor

  • Critiques the North Korean government’s propaganda and how they attempt to control the thoughts and behaviors of its citizens

  • Shows how distorted the view of reality has become in North Korea

• Foreshadowing

  • There are consistently hints throughout the novel at the difficulties the main character will face throughout his visit

    • E.g. when he struggles to get his visa

  • This creates tension, anticipation and a general sense of foreboding in the narrative

  • Makes the reader feel unsafe/uneasy and forces them to think about the consequences totalitarianism have on everyone who steps foot in Korea

  • This complexity is contrasted with the simplicity of the drawings

• Symbolism

  • Imagery that is used to convey the bleakness and austerity of life in North Korea

  • For example: the constant presence of grey buildings and landscapes are symbolic of the oppressive nature of the North Korean government + the lack of details symbolize the lack of freedom of the citizens

• Language style

  • Simple and straightforward writing (similar to the visuals)

    • Focus on clarity and conciseness

  • Everyday and sometimes verbal language is used, with a lack of jargon or complex diction/sentence structures

    • Makes the work more accessible to all readers

    • Stands in contrast to the complex ideas and concepts of totalitarianism, cross-cultural communication, etc.

  • Quite similar language style in the captions and the speech/thought bubbles

    • As the narrator and the main character is the same person → he is narrating actively, as the events happen

    • Captions primarily provide context and exposition, but are also used for jokes that would not be appropriate for Delisle to say out loud in the moment → seem like they are his inner thoughts and commentary on the moment

    • Speech bubbles are used to convey interactions between our characters, which often demonstrates a difference in communication

      • The language style in the speech bubbles is arguably even more simplified, to illustrate how straightforward and to the point one must be when communicating across a language barrier

      • Conversational style with a focus on conveying the emotions of the characters and indirectly characterizing them

      • Here there is also a higher degree of informal language and colloquialism

        • Verbal language

        • The type of colloquialism, slang and informal language underlines cultural differences even more

• Parallelism

  • Syntactic structures and sentence patterns are frequently utilized in the work

    • Create a sense of rhythm and emphasis

  • Phrases like “we went to” and “we saw” are often used to describe Delisle’s experiences in North Korea

    • Makes his routines familiar to the reader

    • Emphasizes the monotony of life in North Korea → makes everything feel the same, creates a sense of entrapment/claustrophobia

• Repetition

  • Similarly to parallelism, the repetition of emotionally loaded words occurs throughout the whole novel to emphasize key themes/ideas

    • Example: negatively loaded term “grayness” is often used to describe what Delisle experiences and sees in North Korea

  • Makes the work seem consistent and cohesive in its narrative

  • Underlines the negative impact totalitarianism has on the individual reader

Visual devices

• Overall effect on communicating the themes, message, etc.

  • The minimalistic art style and moderate degree of cartoonification creates an effective balance between realism and emotional expressions and humor

  • Captures the bleakness and totalitarianism of North Korea and how all days and moments bleed together and become a continuous experience without break

    • Emphasized by the lack of page numbers

  • Engage in a complex interplay with the text to create an immersive reading experience that effectively communicates the themes of totalitarianism and individuality

• Panel layout

  • Simple panel layout with a sequential narrative

  • Easy for all readers to follow → allows them to focus on the details of the work instead

  • Rectangular shape

• Gutters

  • Thin gutters

  • Creates a sense of continuity and fluidity between the panels

• Captions

  • If the top of the panel is white, then the caption is free floating at the top

  • If the top of the panel is not white/details something specific, then the caption is written in a completely square white box

    • Single line, very minimalistic

  • Written in caps lock, generic writing

  • Not always present → the visuals are often allowed to “speak for themselves”

  • Narrated by Guy Delisle with a humorous tone

• Negative space

  • The background in most panels is relatively sparse/empty, with few details

  • Conveys the oppressive atmosphere of North Korea → even the background and the environment is controlled and shallow

• Iconography

  • Depicts significant cultural and political symbols of North Korea

  • Examples: Kim Jong-il, the hammer, the sickle

  • Provides context for the author’s experiences and emphasizes the negative aspects of totalitarian control

• Facial expressions

  • Used to convey emotions and reactions of the character sin the memoir

  • At times over exaggerated

    • Adds humor to the text, in contrast to the oppressive atmosphere

    • Allows the readers to further connect with the characters

    • Oppositional reading: the exaggeration may make the readers feel like the characters are less human and thus not empathize/resonate with them as much

• Perspective

  • Multiple perspectives utilized in the work for different effects

  • The perspective is usually the narrator’s perspective as he navigates life in North Korea

    • E.g. when he looks down on the city from his hotel room, the perspective also looks down + when he walks on the street, the camera angle is at street level as opposed to bird’s eye view

    • The reader sees what he sees how he sees it

  • Creates a sense of space and immerses the reader in his experiences

• Artstyle

  • Minimalist and straight forward drawing with little freedom

  • Delisle uses a mostly realistic style for the environment and background

    • Simple line work

    • Minimal shading

    • Makes the work feel more real to the reader → sense of immediacy and place

• Cartoonification

  • Moderate to slightly higher degree of cartoonification

    • The background and characters are not over exaggerated, but they are not hyper realistic either

    • Balances the severity of the work with the aspects of humor

  • The quite simple and minimalistic art style makes the illustrations be more cartoonified → drawings consist primarily of single lines and shapes, but the people/objects they are pieced into are identifiable as humans/objects

  • Our main character is interestingly the character with the highest degree of cartoonification, while the people around him are much more detailed

    • His face consists essentially of an oval and a triangle and in multiple drawings he does not even have a mouth

    • While the people around him are still quite cartoonified, they have more details such as collar bones, distinct mouths, naturally shaped noses, eyebrows

    • 

    • 

    • 

    • This can have multiple purposes

      • One can be to emphasize the difference between him and the people he encounters

        • It emphasizes that he is an outside in the story and has a different cultural background than the North Korean people

      • Another could be to put the focus on the North Koreans he encounters and show that despite the oppressive regime, they are realized individuals with unique traits

      • Lastly it can be to better identify with the narrator, as he is generic and appealing to everyone

        • His body language and expressions are meant to convey his feelings when engaging with the familiar environment in North Korea → higher cartoonification helps exaggerate and emphasize this

        • Though, this can backfire and have the opposite effect of him being too generic to connect with

• Black and white coloring

  • Only black, grey and white in different shades and nuances → no colors

  • Minimalistic approach

  • The visual contrast emphasizes the textual contrast between the oppressive of the North Korean totalitarian state and the mundane life of the foreign narrator

  • The light of the panels often focuses on the sky, the top of buildings or icons of Kim → furthers the oppressive atmosphere, makes the reader feel that the characters are all smaller than

• Emanata

  • There is emanata used quite frequently to exaggerate the reactions of characters (particularly Delisle)

  • It can communicate emotions, which is particularly helpful with the degree of cartoonification → makes it easy for the readers to discern and connect with

  • Examples: Squiggles over people's heads to communicate a poor mood, lines indicating someone quickening up, sweat drops to indicate anxiety, lines above heads to indicate disorientations, etc.

  • Quite subtle use, yet the effect is still prominent → it adds another layer of meaning to the illustrations by helping conveying characters’ emotions without the need for explicit dialogue

Key concepts

• Identity

  • One of the most central themes and concepts in the work, along with culture

  • Delisle explores the differences in identity in North Korea and the West

    • He constantly compares his own idea, values and thoughts with what he encounters in North Korea

  • Delisle feels isolated and out of place in North Korea as his identity and cultural background does not align with the North Korean one

    • He examines what it is like to navigate a foreign identity

  • Pyongyang criticizes how the North Korean regime attempts to forge and police the identities of its citizens

    • He explores the effect of authoritarian control and manipulation of the mind

    • Through this, he also shows the readers that North Koreans in fact are individuals with unique traits, only that parts of their way of thinking is affected by the brainwashing of the regime

• Culture

  • One of the most central themes and concepts in the work, along with identity

  • Delisle showcases how North Korean culture is largely constructed and controlled by the totalitarian regime

    • Individuality, freedom and expression is repressed and denied, which makes even the culture (which is often associated with beauty and diversity) drab and claustrophobic

  • Furthermore, he contrasts the culture in North Korea with Western cultures

    • The unfamiliar vs the familiar (to Delisle)

  • Delisle thus invites readers to consider the ways in which culture shapes our beliefs, behaviors and values

    • Some of the North Koreans he encounters don’t question it because the regime purposefully never taught them to question it → Delisle wants to make sure Western readers do not fall into the same trap

• Creativity

  • While creativity in itself is not a crucial theme in the work, it is featured and explored to some extent

  • Delisle works as an animator, a line of work which involves creativity to a large extent, and it was such creative endeavors that lead him to Pyongyang

  • Creativity, along with any freedom of expression, is highly repressed by the regime

    • This reveals the vast impacts of totalitarian control

    • Delisle’s creativity is limited and policed by the restrictions of the North Korean government

    • He criticizes this throughout the work

• Communication

  • Another important theme in Pyongyang, as Deslisle grapples with cross-cultural communication and linguistic barriers

  • Delisle’s struggles to communicate with his North Korean colleagues

    • This makes it difficult to establish proper relationships with them, which demonstrates the importance of communication in relationships

    • It also makes the working environment more drab and unmotivating for him

  • The work continues to give examples of and showcase how crucial understanding and communication are, and how when they are removed, it becomes difficult to engage with others and media

    • This again ties back to totalitarianism → part of the restrictions the regime imposes is purposefully to hinder viable communication

• Perspective

  • Perspective is not necessarily directly explored and analyzed in the work, but is crucial for a reader to keep in mind and dissect when they study the work

  • Delisle offers a Western perspective on Pyongyang and its people

    • His observations and interactions are all impacted by its foreign background

    • This has dual effects → on the one hand, it aids in uncovering a lot of the mystery surrounding Pyongyang, but on the other hand this might be a too simplistic and biased view which is unable to take into account the reality of North Korean life

    • His perspective is built primarily on comparisons with the West

      • This helps Western readers understand North Korea better, but may then not allow for the necessary reflections and nuances that a local could provide

  • His perspective on North Korea shifts throughout the work, which indicates character development and aids the reader in developing their own preconceived notions on what the country is like, if they have any

• Transformation

  • Delisle is a dynamic character in the work and his views undergo an especially significant transformation

  • His idea of what North Korea and its people are like transforms throughout the work as becomes increasingly critical of the regime and empathetic of the people

    • This is brought on by his experience of everyday life in North Korea and how he himself has been exposed to there

  • Through his own transformation, the author invites the readers themselves to reflect upon and consider their biases, stereotypes and perhaps ignorance

• Representation

  • It is rare for North Korea to be represented directly and explicitly in literary works, especially the domestic everyday life there

  • Delisle challenges common stereotypes and misconceptions about North Korea and its people

  • He emphasizes a more complex and accurate representation of North Korean society, while still maintaining an appropriate level of critique of the regime’s mistreatment of its people

Comparison with Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

• Both are graphic novel memoirs that offer a personal perspective on a non-Western country

  • Iran in Persepolis and North Korea in Pyongyang

  • A difference is that Iran is Marjane’s (main character in Persepolis) home country while North Korea is foreign to Delisle

  • The time periods also differ as Persepolis is a coming of age story from a native Iranian while Pyongyang is “simply” a two month long visit from an outsider

• Both explore complex ideas and emotions connected to the themes of identity, culture and totalitarianism

• Both works also challenge common stereotypes and misconceptions about the countries they depict, though for slightly different purposes

  • Satrapi wants to show Western readers that Iranian people are complex and individuals and are not represented by the state that oppresses them

    • They are not all fundamentalists and autocratic, they are educated, strong-willed and opinionated

• Similar art styles of only black and white, minimalistic structures, moderate to slightly high degree of cartoonification, exaggerated facial expressions, etc.

• The tone of the works is quite different, largely due to the difference in purpose and aim

  • Persepolis is a retelling of Satrapi’s experiences of being oppressed in Iran as one of its citizens, living through many violent catastrophes → thus it has a serious and reflective tone

  • Pyongyang on the other hand has a more humorous and ironic tone to ridicule and criticize the North Korean government from an outsider’s perspective

    • Though the atmosphere is also oppressive and daunting, the captions are often ironic and poke fun

    • Perseoolis also has a somewhat ironic tone, especially when Satrapi the narrator laughs at her younger self’s antiques

      • The difference is that this is not the point of the work to the same extent as Pyongyang

Comparison with The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

• The genres are quite different, as The Handmaid’s Tale is a science/speculative fiction novel while Pyongyang is a graphic novel memoir

• The Handmaid’s Tale is narrated by its main character, Offred, similarly to Pyongyang

  • But in The Handmaid’s Tale, the narration is retrospective and jumps back and forth between different time levels without warning or explaining anything to the reader

    • This complexity stands in stark contrast to the relatively straightforward nature in Pyongyang

• Both works offer critiques of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes and the dangers of political oppression

  • Though, The Handmaid’s Tale does this largely through uplifting the victims of the regime and showing how an “unimportant” individual navigates that world

  • Whereas Pyongyang focuses more on mere direct critiques of the regime and prioritizes that over the individual victims

    • Likely because he is not one himself and does not know what it’s like → it’s a memoir, unlike The Handmaid’s Tale

• Pyongyang’s minimalistic style in both visuals and language stands in contrast with the simplicity of The Handmaid’s Tale

  • Though there are passages in which the language style is quite clinical (“A chair. A table. A lamp.”) and militaristic, even this is accompanied by a quite complex and complicated tone

• The tone is one of the largest differences between The Handmaid’s Tale and Pyongyang, as Pyongyang is quite humorous and lighthearted while The Handmaid’s Tale’s tone is a highly oppressive

  • This is due to their differing purposes/aims

  • Pyongyang aims at ridiculing, criticizing and pointing out the absurdity of the North Korean government, which is achieve through this tone

  • Whereas The Handmaid’s Tale aims at warning of how the tendencies of the 1980s society in the US could have great consequences and what these consequences feel like on the victim’s end

Comparison with March by John Lewis

• Both are graphic novels and memoirs that offer a personal perspective on injustices within a country

  • A contrast is which country and which perspective these works follow

  • In March, senator John Lewis reflects on The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, particularly in the Southern states, from the perspective of his younger black self

  • In Pyongyang, Delisle describes North Korea in the 2000s from the perspective of a foreigner who is shocked by the effects of totalitarianism

• The art styles of the works are quite different, as March has a low degree of cartoonification and realistic colors while Pyongyang is quite cartoonified and in black and white

• Both works explore complex ideas and emotions through visual storytelling

• Both works explore themes of identity, oppression, social justice and cultural differences

• The focus of the works are quite different, as Lewis merely uses his story as a way to zoom out and analyze the racial inequality in the United States, while Pyongyang quite closely follows only Delisle’s own experiences

• The tone in these two works are not as different as with Persepolis and The Handmaid’s Tale, but they are still somewhat different

  • March is more hopeful and serious while Pyongyang is more humorous