Quiz 1 Spring 2014 for Escape from Camp 14 - Essay Example

Shin’s horrendous experiences that established on him a radically different moral Describe in detail the dark secret that proves to be the cause of Shins incapacitating guilt?Shins incapacitating guilt derives from the fact that he snitched on his family; his mother and his brother, by betraying them to the prison guards, after he had of their plan to escape from the prison, and he now feels he was responsible for their executions, even after keeping the secret to himself for 15 years (Harden, xiv).

A further dark secret, which has completely resulted to a consistent guilt conscious is the fact that Shin at the time his mother was hanged, he refused to look her in the eyes, and he was in fact glad that his mother had died, since he constantly saw her as a threat to his survival in prison, especially during her childhood years in the prison, for example, since she beat him, and she was also a competitor for food to him (Harden, 3). The fact that the horrendous experiences in the prison that had taught him something different from what humanity is, he could not relate to what it means to be human, to have family, and to relate with others at a human level.

His dark secret has now caused him agony, even after 7 years of freedom in USA, despite his attempts to reinvent himself through changing his name (Harden, 1). The memories of seeing his mother hanged and those of seeing his brother shot dead, especially coupled with the fact that Shin is the one who betrayed them is an experience that has completely incapacitated him, so much so that, after experiencing humane living condition and after relating with other people at a human level, he is unable to forgive himself for the betrayal.

Shins behavior, like everyone elses in Camp 14, is completely different from that of people living in a free world, or at least those who were not born in a prison camp in North Korea, and his behavior is based on a radically different moral code. It is completely incomprehensible and even inconceivable in the mind of a person who has lived his whole life in a free world, for example, the fact that a son can actually feel glad and relieved by the death of his mother and his brother (Harden, 3).

It is even more inconceivable why a person would like to betray his own family; his only family as far as he knows it, especially because Shin was born in a prison camp and therefore did not know any more family or relatives, other than the ones he had in prison. This is because love to him was a meaningless word, having viewed her mother as a threat from childhood, while viewing his brother as a stranger and his father as just any other visitor who cohabited with her mother five times a year (Harden, 3).

Such are the reasons that make a person who have lived in a free world perceive the behavior of Shin as completely different, irregular and based on a highly radical code, yet it is what fate had destined him to, because he had no opportunity to learn any humanity, mercy or love (135). Radicalism and snitching on others, was all the prison camp had taught him. Works CitedHarden, Blaine. Escape from Camp 14: One Mans Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. New York: Viking, 2012. Print.