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Queer as the narrative Technique -The Narrative Structure analysis of Kim young-ha’s novel“Photo shop murder” “Meditation of the mirror” and the Movie “The Scarlet Letter”

Yun JungHwa 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The Scarlet Letter (2004) directed by Byeon Hyeok is said to be based on Kim Young-ha's short stories Photo Shop Murder and Meditation of the Mirror. The director created a new film narrative by blending these two novels. This article aims to figure out how queerness in the film depicts adultery, a narrative form considered disturbing in society, and how it is represented as a filmic narrative form. In his early stories, Kim Young-ha borrowed filmic images in his writing and expanded the imagination of desire. Rather than focusing on the borrowed filmic images in the stories, this article aims to examine another theme that is produced in the film as the film amalgamates the narratives of his novels. The film The Scarlet Letter is a representative queer movie with a storyline of homosexual relations between two heroines. On the surface, the story is about adultery: the main character takes her lover’s husband and is unfaithful to her lover. Looking into it more closely, it is revealed that the story is about revenge: the main character takes her lover's husband from her and marries him to pay back her lover for her betrayal. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, implication of the upper case “A” which Hester wears for adulterer is transformed into “angel” in the last part of the novel. As with this novel, the film shows similar transformation. The mark of adultery and homosexuality in the film is changed into a mark of punishment for the ruling class's narcissism. In the same way Hester resists oppression of conventional society by wearing the beautifully embroidered letter A, the film voices up resistance and freedom from social oppression in a multi-layered narrative form.

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* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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