betraying the ideals of the newly democratic South
Korean nation. Through such diverse characters
as Chaplain Koh, Lieutenant Cho, Colonels Min,
Park, and Jung, and Generals Ahn, Mah, Ham, and
Loon, Kim foregrounds the difficulties inherent in
any attempt to centralize leadership and to remain
faithful to the ideals of a nation, when so many
perspectives, so many agendas and interests must
first coalesce into something resembling a com-
mon good. As the plot unfolds, Kim continually
probes the boundaries of innocence, consciously
invoking the title to force the reader to acknowl-
edge the impossibility of maintaining objectivity
and innocence in the face of so much corruption
and violence.
Serving as the conscience of the Command
Group (and of the novel as a whole), Major Lee
has scrutinized every detail of the planned coup so
as to minimize violence and bloodshed in order to
place the actions of the conspirators firmly within
the ideals of their planned revamping and restruc-
turing of a government and military establishment
overrun with corruption. First on the agenda for
the Command Group is the forcible removal of
General Ham, the avatar of everything wrong
with the present situation in South Korea, which
leaves the question of what to do with him after
taking control. With the exception of Major Lee,
the members of the Command Group wish to ex-
ecute General Ham, not to offer sanctuary abroad
or a position in the new government in light of his
severe abuses of power. Major Lee, very much in
the Christian tradition, does not see how violence
can serve as the end to violence and seriously ques-
tions the decision to murder the general.
Espionage and counterespionage abound, and
the pace of the coup quickly outruns the meticu-
lous planning of Major Lee: the bloodless revolu-
tion gives way to bloody battles between competing
factions within the military, the situation further
compounded by the involvement of the U.S. gov-
ernment and CIA in the guise of Colonel McKay.
The novel’s main tension between Colonel Min,
the ostensible leader of the Command Group, and
Major Lee comes to a head during the move to take
power. Good friends before the war, Colonel Min
and Major Lee have a complicated relationship, as
Colonel Min appears to need Major Lee by his side,
perhaps as some form of an embodied conscience
or reminder of the philosophical underpinnings of
the coup. However, as the coup progresses, Colonel
Min must estrange himself from Major Lee and
his seemingly incorruptible—and perhaps even
unrealistic—innocence.
Kim’s novel captures the difficulty of building
a nation in postwar South Korea: Innocent ide-
als must give way to the inertia of a violent and
tragic history. Soon after the qualified success of
the coup, Colonel Min tells Major Lee: “And that
is what you have done for me—to give me one,
final reminder that a man like me... is a simple
murderer and must not be called by any other
name. You have helped me... in this mad, mad-
dening world, to know and to accept my own ver-
dict” (368). Kim seems to suggest that guilt and
innocence must always depend on one another
for clarification and definition, a theme that runs
throughout the novel and intersects with the post-
war reality in South Korea.Bibliography
Kim, Richard E. The Innocent. Boston: Houghton,
1968.
Zach WeirInterpreter of Maladies: Stories
Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)
As a graduate student at Boston University, JHUMPA
LAHIRI realized her passion for writing fiction and
began to work intensively on crafting short stories
that would later catapult her into literary super-
stardom. Critical and popular acclaim followed the
publication of her first collection of short stories,
Interpreter of Maladies. Prior to its publication,
three of Lahiri’s stories appeared in The New Yorker
and in the same magazine’s summer fiction issue
of 1999, Lahiri was included as one of the “20 Best
American Fiction Writers Under 40.” Interpreter of
Maladies, a collection of nine stories—three set in
India and six in the United States—garnered La-
hiri numerous awards and honors including the
2000 Pulitzer Prize.126 Interpreter of Maladies: Stories