Essay On Kang In Ha Jins Love In The Air

Love in the air is one of the 12 stories in the Ocean of Words collection written by Ha Jin, which portrays army life on the chilly border between China and Russia in the early ’70s. Kang (Big Kang) is the main character in the story of which author to bring out the plot, the desired theme and the objective of the story uses him. In order to correctly and accurately analyze the character, it is imperative to look and analyze the story from Kang’s perspective and by that, identifying the theme and how (Kang) delivers it.
From the onset of the story, it is apparent that Kang is a shy, awkward young man, who is huge but with a mellow soft voice. This illustrated by the authors own words on ‘His whole person was marked by abnormal largeness except for his voice which was small and soft “In addition, he left his farm life to join the military and work as a telegraph operator in an isolated military base in the middle of winter. Judging from these illustrations, and concluding from the created contrast in Kang abandoning a probable future in agriculture for the military (especially in an isolated region), Kang is with no doubt awkward.
However, by becoming socially deprived due to isolation proves him a normal human being. A human is a social animal; therefore, lack of socialization can lead to dire social consequences. Explicitly, Kang as natural human being became vulnerable to falling in love easily with the female telegraph operator, whose voice he became obsessed with, playing it over and over in his head. In addition, owing to the isolation and this infatuation of trying to figure out who his inexplicable love actually is, he becomes agitated and distressed. Jin describes him as a walking corpse in addition to losing focus especially at work. As the protagonist, Kang is used to bring out part of Jin’s objective, which is the consequences that can arise from the constraints of Chinese and military culture.If Kang had not been segregated, he may have not been susceptible to become highly emotionally affixed to a woman whom he never seen nor met. Owing to this isolation, Kang could not relax; he was driving himself crazy. At the end, after being isolated and stepping out into the world, he recognizes the world is full of openings, and the sky is the limit. In short, by Kang realizing his potentials, it is evident that a person cannot live their life concisely, frightened of what others may say about them. Living a life of social deficiency and isolation may lead to self-destruction and feasible insanity.