The
first sentence of the story gives readers important setting details:
The northern village at the border of the Thirty-eighth Parallel was
snugly settled under the high, bright autumn sky.
The
38th Parallel is an important location because it means that the story is taking place at the
dividing line between North Korea and South Korea. During the war, villages located on or near
this line changed hands several times as each side pushed their front line deeper into enemy
territory. Tok-chae and Song-sam grew up as boyhood friends in this particular village, but the
war caused them to end up on opposite sides of the conflict. Tok-chae has been captured because
he's the "enemy," and Song-sam is the officer in charge of taking his childhood friend
to the prisoner camp.
As Song-sam is escorting his friend, Song-sam has a
flash of anger because Tok-chae wound up fighting for the other side:
Song-sam felt a sudden surge of anger in spite of himself and
shouted, So how many have you killed?
Song-sam then
asks why Tok-chae stayed behind to fight instead of fleeing like he did. Tok-chae says that he
wanted to, but his father wouldn't leave. His father saw no point in running away and didn't
know what he would do in another place. Tok-chae simply couldn't bring himself to leave his
father. Tok-chae says,
I wanted to be with him in his last
moments so that I could close his eyes with my own hand.
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