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Diaspora's Political Experience and the Location of Emotion -A Study of Choi Inhun's Novels The Plaza, The Gray Man, and Seoyugi
Journal of Popular Narrative
2017, 23(3),
pp.351-376
DOI :10.18856/jpn.2017.23.3.010
Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
Research Area : Interdisciplinary Research
DOI :10.18856/jpn.2017.23.3.010
Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
Research Area : Interdisciplinary Research
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This paper examines the violence of the modern nation depicted in Choi In-hun's novels The Plaza, The Gray Man, and Seoyugi, and analyzes the pattern and structure of the emotions, such as anxiety, fear, and shame experienced by the intellectual diaspora. I will look at the experience of the modern nation centered on the emotion in Choi In-hun's novels. By analyzing the processes of decontextualization and depoliticization of modern citizens, I reveal the diaspora's writing strategy. Political diaspora embody the de-nationalized subject. In the process, the emotion effectively structures the individual experience and the political performance. In The Plaza, Lee Myungjun wants to acquire the identity as a citizen of the modern nation. He experiences political violence and feels anxious and fearful. Against the power of the modern state, he desires to a free citizen of the modern nation. In The Gray Man, Dok Kogejun realizes that Korea is not modernized and that he should live as an imperial colonizer. He expresses fear created by a violent ideology appropriating the war experience. He changes the trauma of national violence with sexual sensitivity. In Seoyugi, the colonial discourse inherent in the consciousness and unconsciousness of modern citizens is exposed in the subversive rhetorical situation. Dok Kogejun maintains the aesthetics of colonial history, disillusioned with the fantasy of modernity and the political reality which appears contradictory. He turns disillusionment into "shame.“ Through this study, I tried to recognize the spectrum of emotions that Choi Inhoon’s early novels had, and embodied the life of diaspora that lived as both political and existential life across the twentieth century.
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