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Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the movie’s major themes.  

Parasitism 

The idea of parasitism—living off another to survive—shapes Parasite from beginning to end. Even the title encourages viewers to look for relationships where one group feeds off another. At first glance, the Kim family seems to fit the role of the parasites. Eager to escape their impoverished life, they seize the chance to infiltrate the wealthier Park household. Through forgery, manipulation, and deception, each Kim replaces an existing employee by pretending to be someone else or engineering the others' removal. Once inside, they come to rely on the Parks' wealth to sustain them—eating their food, occupying their space, and enjoying their comforts in secret. On the surface, it’s easy to see the Kims as the parasites of the story, living off their wealthier hosts through calculated deceit. 

However, the film quickly challenges this assumption. The Park family are deeply flawed underneath their charming facade. Everything that they have relies on the labor of people they do not see as equals. Their wealth allows them to appear generous, but that superficial kindness is made possible by the constant, invisible work their servants do. The amount of money they pay the Kims is negligible to the Parks; they receive far more than they give in terms of relative value. They also have many expectations: They expect their driver to be quiet and respectful, their housekeeper to clean without being noticed, and their house to remain perfect and spotless. And though they demand deference and respect, they make it clear that any real closeness or friendship between themselves and their servants will not be permitted.  

The hidden inhabitant of the basement under the Park home is another approach to the motif of the “parasite.” Geun-sae, Moon-gwang’s husband, has lived in secret beneath the house for years. He depends on Moon-gwang to keep him hidden, and benefits from the house’s electricity, warmth, and leftover food. But, like the Kims, Geun-sae is only doing what he feels he must to survive. The film does not portray him as solely evil, even when he violently snaps; he’s just a desperate man in terrible circumstances. Parasite uses the motif of parasitism to demonstrate that in a deeply unequal society like contemporary Seoul, every class is entangled in dependence. The lower classes rely on the rich for access to resources and opportunity, while the rich depend on the labor of the lower classes to maintain their comfortable life. In this system, survival often means finding any way to attach yourself to wealth, even if it means pretending to be someone else or disappearing completely.   

Ascending and Descending 

Stairs and vertical movement appear constantly in Parasite; in a clever nod to the movie’s focus on social hierarchies, the characters both literally and metaphorically move up and down in the world. The Kim family lives in a cramped semi-basement apartment that is partially below street level, and they must climb upward each day just to reach the outside world. They can only steal Wi-Fi by crouching in one corner of their bathroom, holding their phones up to the ceiling for a signal, and even at the highest point in their home, they remain physically below the city around them. In contrast, the Park family lives in a luxurious mansion high on a hill. The road to it twists steeply upward, and once inside, the Kims must climb still more flights of stairs to navigate the home. This vertical design mirrors the film’s class dynamics: the wealthy Parks literally live above others, and the physical space they inhabit reflects their belief in their own superiority. 

The movie also utilizes tight angles and corners of staircases to build suspense. After the Kims discover the hidden bunker in the Park home, Bong’s camera repeatedly follows them moving up and down the house’s many stairs. They are no longer just trying to ascend from poverty to riches, they’re navigating multiple hidden levels of secrecy and deception to do so. In order to subdue Moon-gwang when she threatens to expose the Kims to the Parks, Ki-woo violently kicks her down the stairs to the basement. The basement bunker—Geun-sae’s hidden living space and the site of Moon-gwang’s death—becomes the film’s lowest point, both physically and morally, a place where the cost of attempting to “move up” finally becomes clear.  

During the flood scene, the camera follows the Kim family as they scramble through the pouring rain, racing down the sloped streets and narrow alleys of Seoul until they reach their own flooded apartment. The downward movement is steady and unrelenting as they move away from the bright, clean neighborhoods above and end up in their sewage-submerged home. The literal descent mirrors their descent in social standing; any illusion of upward mobility has been washed away, and they are forcibly reminded of their place at the bottom. In Parasite, downward movement becomes a visual metaphor for, and reminder of, the crushing weight of inequality. 

Food and Eating 

When the audience first meet the Kim family in Parasite, the family eats modestly and as cheaply as possible. Because they’re the least expensive and most accessible source of calories, they regularly dine on ram-don, or instant noodles. They share their meals in the tight quarters of their basement home, and they have very little choice in the matter. When a fumigation truck sprays insect-killing chemicals near their home, the Kims leave the window open in the hopes they will score free pest control. They’re trying to make do, even as poison drifts through their space and settles on their food.  

By contrast, the Park family’s wealth allows them to avoid performing any sort of physical labor; their meals are made for them. The Parks depend on workers like the Kims and their former housekeeper to serve them, regardless of how simple the meal may be. When the Kims take over the Park house during the family’s absence, they indulge in all of the expensive food and alcohol that they would never normally have access to. Later, when Mrs. Park calls Chung-sook from the road during their rained-out camping trip, she asks her to prepare ram-don—the same instant noodles that Chung-sook and her family eat out of necessity. However, Mrs. Park adds a fancy twist: she wants Chung-sook to put sirloin steak on top. The dish itself is made from common, cheap ingredients, and serving it plain would be beneath the Parks’ standards. The addition of steak transforms it into something no working-class family could afford to eat casually—and, therefore, makes it acceptable for the Parks' table.

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