No Home or otherwise known as Homeless, is a manhwa, korean comic, that follows a group of characters, more notably the two commonly featured, Eunyung Baek and Haejoon Goh. The manhwa begins with Eunyung stealing Haejoon’s wallet, resulting in them both living in a dingy, haunted dorm. As the reader, we follow each person and their personal backstories, specifically how it led to the development of their characters. What I would like to focus on is the theme of growing up, and the idea that what surrounds you is what you supposedly are.
What is a broken home? The google definition for a broken home is when you come from a family where your parents are separated. Whilst this definition is understandable, I believe a broken home is a place filled with discomfort and fear, a place you can’t call home at all. Eunyung grows up in an environment where he’s essentially overlooked and abused. Children and adults fear growing up only to grow into what they believe their abuser’s were. In No Home, the author Wanan makes this a clear motif in his work, there is a moment where Eunyung is put in the situation where he has to face his father, who has been abusing him for most of his life. At one point, his father reaches to attack him and Eunyung raises his hand in defence, realising he is physically larger than his father, who he had been seeing as a black silhouette metaphorically until he saw him for how pathetic his father really was. Eunyung stops himself from hitting his father, however feels an immense disgust and shame. Was he beginning to seem like his father?
There are multiple phrases portraying the idea that you become what you grow up to be. For example: “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” or “The abused becomes the abuser.” What Haejoon Goh feels is similar to this sentiment. After living with his now deceased mother for all his life, Haejoon’s father re-enters his life, providing him with an unknown sense of stability with new memories and a photo album. Eunyung, who happens to glimpse at the album questions Haejoon’s father, leading Haejoon to confront his father and find out the truth, which was his father had been abusing his mother, hence why he hadn’t been in their lives. Haejoon is distraught and fears that in actuality, he is his father due to his previous nickname of “mad dog” referring to his past of being what many people saw as a delinquent. He finds it hard to live with this new found information, he questions himself and even resorts to asking Eunyung whether he seems like his father. Eunyung replies saying he sees Haejoon’s mother in him, allowing Wanan to reiterate the idea that familial blood doesn’t necessarily mean you become them.
Both Haejoon and Eunyung struggle with their views on themselves, and whether they are like the people in their lives who have wronged and abused them. Understandably those who grow up with problematic parental figures face the same fears. To many adults, it is a constant reminder, like an alarm, to not become the people who they once feared. The beauty of no home is that it emphasises this fear, whilst presenting a comfortable space for people to understand that whilst it is difficult to not become someone you feared, it is also possible to be yourself and more than what you have been seen by others.
