Point of View

Forgotten Country is told using a first-person narrator: the character Janie, or Jeehyun. Given the tremendous amount of miscommunication that exists within Janie’s family, it is significant that the reader only has access to Janie’s own thoughts and feelings. This means that the reader is kept in suspense with regards to a number of plot points, only learning them at the moment Janie learns them: that her mother had gone to the DMZ during the mysterious night she disappeared during Janie’s childhood; that her father was completely content with having two daughters, and no sons, as reported by Hannah after her father passes away; and, most significantly, that Janie’s late cousin Gabe had actually molested Hannah when the cousins were children.

While Janie does not appear to be an unreliable narrator with regards to factually recalling events, the argument could be...