In The Red Room, the two characters have opposite impressions of the red torture room. O Ki-sop sees it as a “bloody hell” and “Nightmarish”, while Ch’oe Tal-shik thinks color of blood is “so beautiful it made [him] dizzy” (150, 156). The wordplay and symbolism of the color red is clever — accused of being a Red, or a communist, Ki-sop eventually wakes up feeling like the red of the room is inside him and that he is “turning red all over” as he is forced to confess. He also observes that “Red is the color of madness” (164). In contrast, Tal-shik finds “vivid clarity” and “sacred joy” in the Red Room as a result of his meditations on violence. Ki-sop is driven mad by red, while Tal-shik madly revels in it. To Ch’oe, the room is sacred — whether or not his victims are truly Reds, they all turn red in the end.