Organizer and Chair: Stephen J. Epstein, Victoria University, Wellington, New
Zealand
Discussant: Henry Em, University of California, Los Angeles
This panel will examine the intersection of historical circumstance and Korean literature in the post-war era. Ken Wells will first probe the question of historicity in literature during this period. His paper focuses on writings by the National Writers' Union and examines the extent to which they can be accepted as historical accounts on the same level as the genre we call "history." This essay provides a general theoretical framework for the following papers which look in detail at individual works: Stephen Epstein considers Kim Sung-ok's widely anthologized "Seoul: Winter 1964" and, in examining the story's concerted play with meaning and meaninglessness, demonstrates the text's concern with the decay of language. Epstein argues that this seemingly apolitical and nihilistic tale is in fact a biting political comment on the early Park era and the sense of disillusion created by the failure of the 1960 revolution to lead to lasting change. Jennifer Lee follows with a discussion of Yi Ch'ong-Jun, whose writing, she argues, provides critical insights into a turbulent period of state suppression of artistic and political expression. In particular, she focuses on Yi's "Wall of Rumor" in which the protagonist, a writer who must find a language that escapes the state, discovers madness as a means of defying authoritarian rule. Jin Hee Kim will then speak on "The Sense of the Past and Victim Consciousness in Post-War Korean Literature." Her paper will analyze Yi Man-Hui's recent play "Please Turn Off the Lights," to substantiate her claim that Korean literature frequently identifies the legacy of the past as the source of many problems faced by the present generation.
The Relation Between History and Literature During the Park and Chun Eras
Kenneth M. Wells, Australia National University
The gulf between KAPF writers and "art for art's sake" writers in the 1920s and 30s has its contemporary parallel in the opposed viewpoints of the Minjok Munhak Chakka Hoeui, or National Writers' Union, and other groups such as the Pen Club. This paper is concerned with the literary and critical position of the National Writers' Union, and its predecessors, insofar as they address the relation between creative writing and history, or, more commonly, contemporary society and politics. My discussion includes an examination of the poetry of Kim Suyông and Sin Tongyôp, and selected short and medium stories: Hwang Sôgyông's Kaekchi (Far From Home), Lee Hyesuk's Maeun param punûn nal (The Day of the Acrid Wind) and Songnyôn chanch'i (New Year's Eve Party), and Chông Tosang's Ch'in'gunûn môlli kassôdo (Though My Friend's Gone Far Away).
In examining these works, I attempt to address the question of whether or in what sense they can be accepted, not simply as historical documents, but as historical accounts on the same level as the genre we call "history." While acknowledging the quality of earnest commitment which inspires the writings and critique, from the standpoint of a historian I conclude that the blurring or at times conscious repudiation of boundaries between "history" and "literature" has not clarified our vision of the past or contemporary situation and may even have helped precipitate a crisis in the current national literature movement.
The Meaning of Meaninglessness in Kim Sûng-Ok's "Seoul: Winter 1964"
Stephen J. Epstein, Victoria University, Wellington
Kim Sûng-Ok's Seoul: Winter 1964 (Soûl, 1964 kyôul) has been one of the most frequently translated and anthologized works of modern Korean fiction. This paper analyzes the story from two complementary aspects, focusing first on Kim's emphasis on the degradation of language and then exploring this theme as a reflection of the early years of Park Chung-Hee's rule. In the story Kim portrays a latter-day Three Musketeers who band together by accident one winter evening. Their rallying cry, however, becomes not "all for one and one for all," but "where should we go?" and the falsity and tenuousness of their bond pushes them to disaster. I will show how frequent examples of miscommunication engender black humor and typify Kim's portrayal of a world rife with alienation and insensitivity in which words have lost their significance. The characters can communicate with one another only when noting trivialities: ironically, language takes on meaning only when the utterly meaningless is being discussed. I argue that the apathetic nihilism of the central characters forces us to read this seemingly apolitical story, perhaps paradoxically, as a political statement and a subtle but powerful indictment of the early Park era. I will show how the title, explicitly and challengingly linking the story to a specific historical moment, and an easily overlooked reference to student protest in the body of the text, become determining factors in a reading of the story, the only items with true meaning in a world which has lost meaning.
Yi Ch'ông-jun's "Wall of Rumor" and Park Chung Hee's "Prison of
Fear"
Jennifer M. Lee, University of Hawai'i
The literary career of Yi Ch'ông-jun, one of Korea's most distinguished and prolific contemporary writers, spans the decades of greatest political upheaval and social unrest in postwar Korea. His works provide critical insights into a turbulent era when the state suppressed artistic and political expression. He often explores madness as a repercussion of living in a maelstrom of intense fear and oppression and also uses mental and physical illness as a metaphor for the unhealthy state of South Korean society in the early 1970s. In this paper I will examine Yi's novella, Wall of Rumor (Somun ûi pyôk; 1971) as a particularly representative piece responding to the authoritarian regime of Park Chung Hee.
Wall of Rumor is a political allegory describing the insidious power of the state in suppressing voices of opposition. Yi's protagonist is a writer who must find a language that escapes the state, and his madness becomes a means of circumventing or defying authoritarian rule. The author's incisive criticism of Park Chung Hee's dictatorship illustrates the unhealthy nature of harsh rule in which fear pervades every corner of the society. Park's rule was largely maintained by coercion and by monopolizing the apparatus of the state. Park utilized the KCIA as an effective political tool for silencing dissidents. The omnipresence of the state created a pervasive climate of fear resembling that engendered by Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, an apparatus that instilled discipline by allowing (without requiring) constant surveillance by hidden watchers.
The Sense of the Past and Victim Consciousness in Post-War Korean Literature
Jinhee Kim, Smith College
One of the most celebrated cultural paradigms dominating the public and private domains of post-war Korea is that of "strength." Strength is regarded as the constituent of the national characteristic and has been employed as the major ideological tool in revamping the war-stricken nation in the latter half of twentieth-century. Over the past fifty years, the magnitude of Korean people's strength has reached nearly all walks of Korean culture, reinventing its identity in the post-colonial history and proving far more than its literary meaning. Having prevailed against numerous economic and political disadvantages following the Korean war and having become a strong contender in the world, modern Korea has clearly attested to its national characteristic.
This shift of paradigm was thought of as a necessary step toward an economic reform. The South Korean government under the leadership of late President Park Jung Hee identified economic reform as the most urgent project of the country and launched massive campaigns to recreate the image of the nation. Under this cohesive government policy, the image of strength was chosen and subsequently presented to the public by the media of posters, textbooks, newspapers, and magazines. One of the elementary but ubiquitous pictorial images in this line of propaganda portrays a group of men, who respectively represent industry, the military, education, and science, wearing firm facial expressions and fixing their eyes on the horizon. The predominant theme running through this representation is a strength that was designed to redeem history by means of economic prosperity. These color posters on the billboards of public school, bus station, and of government offices as well as police stations are but one example of cultural construction of which the government was the predominant force. The result of such a nation-wide campaign was a construction of the image of Koreans as assertive, robust, optimistic, and future-gazing; in short, a potential superpower.
However, what is hidden under this positive and powerfully futuristic metaphor is a profound sense of nostalgia, especially the sentiment of "victim consciousness," which is central to the Korean assessment of history. Victim consciousness is a post-war mentality which sees the past as the fundamental source of all the problems by which the younger generations are helplessly constrained. In the post-war Korean literature, the legacy of the past is identified as the source of many problems faced by the present generation. In spite of the hard-earned economic achievements and the newly-found political status in the international community, the sense of pride and accomplishment is little, while victim consciousness persists.
To illustrate this claim, I will examine a recent Korean play entitled Please Turn Off the Lights, written by the Korean playwright Yi Man-hüi. Yi's play was produced in January 1992 in Seoul, South Korea, and has received a great deal of critical acclaim for its sincere and explicit portrayal of a modern man caught between traditional values and personal desires. The male protagonist of this drama is a middle-aged politician who has risen to his current political height after many false turns of fortune. When we meet him for the first time on stage, the male protagonist has so far failed to reconcile his past. As a result, the past continues to dominate his present. But, as if his personal history is an allegory of the nation, the male protagonist eventually overcomes his obstacles, and the play arrives at a seemingly happy ending.
What is stunning about this drama is that the audience becomes literally imprisoned to experience the male protagonist and his pains. The power of visualization manifested through flashback technique effectively brings out the atrocity of the past. An intricate incorporation of language and spectacle pierces the heart of the audience. However sweet his success, what is ultimately signified in this drama is that the past is the culprit which robs the male protagonist of his chances of spiritual redemption. This tragic sense of the past is repeatedly shown to impinge on his personal history, and therefore, there cannot be found any sense that man, as an individual, is the center of the universe. Please Turn Off the Lights ends with a profound note on the tragedy of the male protagonist, who helplessly feels haunted by the legacy of the past, and identifies himself as a victim of history.
In spite of the extraordinary economic achievements which resulted from the well-orchestrated government efforts, the images of strength in Korean people do not exorcise a deep sense of resentment toward what history has to offer. As the contemporary drama, Please Turn Off the Lights shows, in contrast to the crystalline image of strength there is a certain perspective which presents a conflicting, if not contradictory, ethos to post-war Koreans and their self-sought identities. If strength is what has availed the nation of the socio-economic transformations, then what foregrounds understanding individuality and the universe is a sad, and even angry, gaze at the past. Thus, the victim mentality is the paradoxical twin of strength. Such a subjective response to the past is so deeply ingrained in the consciousness of Koreans that no Korean wo/man will ever find her/himself emptied of history. Instead, s/he is always at the task of revealing the depth of it. And, this is nowhere more apparent than in post-war literature.