In the short story, the author attacks the masculinity of the men within the society. While the males are the ones expected to work hard, this story indicates a phenomenon where women work hard while the men lazy around. Pongnyo's father is such a lazy farmer that he cannot hold down a field for two years Fulton &Kwon, 15). Pongnyo's husband, on the other hand, is so lazy that he even allows Pongnyo to sleep with other men for their money. One main question that lingers in a reader's mind is; Why are the men in this book portrayed as lazy?
Notably, this story aims to elaborate an escalating moral decay in the then Korean society. This decay is so corrosive that it even affects people who had been morally upright like Pongnyo. Being around people who are morally deficient makes Pongnyo do things she would have otherwise not have done. From a different perspective, it appears that the men are behind the wheel of the vehicle of moral decay. Pongnyo's loss of even the slightest shed of morality is fueled by her husband's lazy ways. She is therefore not fully to blame for what meets her at the end of the story. Had her husband been supportive and hardworking as she was, they would have lived decently, and Pongnyo would not have met her death as she did.
In conclusion, immorality breeds immorality. As Pongnyo embraces the culture at Seven Star gates, she begins to do even worse things than she had imagined. She begins to question the concept of morality and comes up with new definitions that fit her behavior (Bruce &Kwon, 17). At the end of the story, the end does not justify the means.
Works Cited
Fulton Bruce & Kwon Youngmin. Modern Korean Fiction. Columbia University Press: New York. 1948. Print.
