From the surface, Sea Change by Gina Chung seems to be about navigating life's many difficulties while healing from deep-rooted trauma and loss. Following a troubled 30-year-old's life as she tries to deal with grief from her father's disappearance, her recent breakup with her boyfriend of three years, and her childhood traumas. I think we can all partly see ourselves in the main character Aurora, nicknamed Ro. Especially for those who grew up in an Asian household, Ro's uncut experiences serve as a painfully honest representation.
However, digging deeper, it can slowly be revealed that Ro's suffering stems from the generation before her, and possibly the few generations before that as well. A stream of women's suffering runs in Ro's family, notably within her own mother and Ro's cousin Rachel. Ro's mother, referred to by Ro as Umma, was an independent woman born to an upper-middle-class family in Seoul. Being a formally trained singer in one of Seoul's top universities, Umma had great aspirations in life, with an equally great determination to never "just be someone's wife". Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened, she married Ro's father, referred to as Apa, and became a wife that is fully dependent on her husband, halfway across the world from her birthplace.Â
There were numerous ups and downs throughout Umma and Apa's marriage. Even when their marriage hit rock bottom when Apa was found out to have been cheating on Umma when Ro was 9, they stayed married for 6 more years up until Apa's disappearance. This is characteristic of the cycle of abuse. The cycle of abuse is a model developed by psychologist Lenore Walker in 1979, which states that there are 4 noticeable stages in the cycle of abuse: building tension, incident of abuse, reconciliation, and calm.
The building tension stage is when conflicts start to brew between the couple, whether it be from external factors or factors within the relationship. This causes feelings of discomfort and attempts to appease the partner to prevent them from lashing out. Next, the incident of abuse stage is self-explanatory, it is when abuse inevitably happens through its many forms, from verbal abuse, manipulation, or even physical violence. Unfortunately, after the abuse, tensions reduce and the abuser often "love bombs" the victim in order to underplay the abuse. For the victim, this releases oxytocin and dopamine and leads them into thinking that their relationship is returning to "normal", even though this normalcy is just the peace before the chaos. The last stage is calm, the re-establishment of apparent harmony, and the return to the "normal" state of the relationship.
In the novel, there are three noticeable instances of this cycle happening in Umma and Apa's marriage. Chronologically, the first happened when Ro was only 7 years old. Umma's increasingly frequent trips and intensifying devotion to the church, combined with Apa being a sceptic of religion, even calling the people in the church "a bunch of con artists", caused tensions in their household. Eventually, the tension broke out in the form of screaming fights almost every week, with both Umma and Apa making threats to each other. However, as if nothing happened, Apa started listening to Umma, as seen in the quote, "Apa came with us to church. I wasn't sure why or how Umma had managed to get him to agree to attend, but he was meek and acquiescent that day, even agreeing to change out of his usual uniform of khaki pants and a stained button-down into a dark blue suit..." This is the reconciliation stage, with Apa making efforts to please Umma. As it turns out, this is because Umma was pregnant with a baby boy. This stage continued into the calm stage, when the peace and quiet maintained itself for quite a while, with Apa continuing to be more lenient towards Umma, up until her miscarriage.
Only two years later, a major cycle of abuse appeared again. Even after the screaming fights, Umma and Apa stayed together. This was until tensions rose again when Umma started suspecting that Apa was having an affair. The instance of violence happened when Umma confronted Apa about his mistress, Laura. Despite being the one in the wrong, Apa responded by once again abusing her verbally, quoting, "You've (Umma) finally gone crazy". He also made a degrading comment about how Umma will never get that far alone as she "...[doesn't] even know how to book her own airplane ticket". This caused Umma to leave for a week, but despite everything, she came back at the end.
Even after Apa's infidelity was uncovered, their marriage went on. A year later, when the family went on a trip to Hawaii, Umma and Apa's intimacy sparked once again, representing the calm stage in the cycle of abuse. The beginning of the trip went smoothly, with Umma and Apa being uncharacteristically happy with each other, even singing along to "Hotel California" together, and, as quoted, "swaying gently to the music" as well as "smiling at each other". This did not last long, however, as tension started to build. From financial issues, until the conflict finally came to a head when Apa suggested staying there for a few more days. A fight broke out, and another instance of abuse happened in the form of Apa's name-calling against Umma, calling her "stupid". Once again, even though the once-happy trip ended sourly with another instance of abuse, Umma never once considered the possibility of breaking free from her passive and abusive husband, likely because of her condition as a migrant wife away from her birth country.
Meanwhile, for Ro's cousin Rachel, the abuse within her household manifests in a more physical form. Serving as a supporting character in the novel, Rachel is 6 years older than Ro and is trying to adapt to life after a divorce from her husband, all the while taking care of her young daughter, Hailie. This proves difficult as previously, she dropped out of her Master's program to get married to Simon. Now, she is struggling to make ends meet.
Simon's overly pragmatic attitude and his belief that people could be, quoted, "taken apart and put back together again" caused rising tension in his marriage with Rachel. Eventually, the instance of abuse manifested in the form of physical abuse when Simon attempted to push Rachel down the stairs in front of the then 4-year-old Hailie. Even after potentially getting severely injured or even losing her life after Simon's abuse and worse yet, having her own child witness it, Rachel decided to give Simon another chance. Ro even compared her to a character in a TV series, Rose, who "[makes] the same mistakes over and over again and gets perpetually confused when things don't work out" when it comes to her hopeless attitude towards Simon.Â
In the reconciliation phase a few years after their divorce, Simon love bombs Rachel by taking her out to lunch and treating her sweetly. This leads Rachel to think of patching things up with Simon, something she had never considered before out of her resolve to protect her child, the very reason she chose to leave Simon. During this moment of weakness, Rachel remarked that he is still important to her and "will always be Hailie's dad" despite her previous contempt towards him. Luckily, there was never a calm phase as Rachel ultimately decided to move on with her life with Hailie without Simon after she remembered the gravity of what he did to her.
Many have argued that Walker's cycle of abuse model is outdated, and I agree. The pattern is too rigid and generalising, while also placing women as the designated victim without regard to domestic violence with male victims. But, for this case, as a directive to show the repeating cycle of ups and downs in domestic violence, I think the model is still quite helpful.
However, what I want to bring to attention is the fact that Walker's cycle of abuse model does not talk about another integral part of abuse; what happens after the victim is freed from the abuser. It is not talked about nearly enough that even after victims have escaped the control and abuse from their abusers, the cycle of abuse still perpetuates.
Umma is a character that perfectly reflects how the cycle of abuse continues even after the victims are no longer under the influence of their abusers. Umma still chose to wear her wedding ring for a while after Apa's untimely disappearance, and struggles to deal with her newfound independence, something she deeply desired. Rachel, on the other hand, managed to break free from the cycle, but still struggles with the ramifications of being a single mother, sometimes missing the life that she had with her ex-husband.
These two characters illustrate the harsh reality of recovery from domestic abuse. Its effects linger, since after years of being in an abusive relationship, victims can form a codependency towards their abusers. This makes it incredibly hard for victims of abuse to lead their own lives after they are freed from their abusers, as they are unfamiliar with a reality without the control that has kept them constrained all this time.
Chung, G. (2023). Sea Change. Vintage Books.
Walker, L. (1979). The Battered Woman. William Morrow Paperbacks.
