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A Study on the ‘Zombie Narrative’ in Modern Korean Novels

  • Journal of Popular Narrative
  • 2021, 27(2), pp.79-104
  • DOI : 10.18856/jpn.2021.27.2.003
  • Publisher : The Association of Popular Narrative
  • Research Area : Interdisciplinary Studies > Interdisciplinary Research
  • Received : May 13, 2021
  • Accepted : June 14, 2021
  • Published : June 30, 2021

Kim, Soryun 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The content that is actively consumed in popular culture today is definitely the ‘Zombie Narrative’. ‘Zombie’ is soon positioned as a unique character that reveals the times in which we live in conjunction with the uniqueness of Korean society. Zombies, however, are rarely narrated in traditional Korean modern novels though science-fiction novels constructively deal with them. This paper focuses on the existence of ‘zombie’, which seldom appears in modern novels. The paper also aims to illuminate the literary value of the ‘zombie narrative’ that is explosively consumed in modern society. In the main part, I talk about the horrors of ‘ignorance’ appearing in the existence of zombies in relation to those of the problem concerning “unknown”. As one of the crucial characteristics of the zombies, moreover, the “absence” of the “thinking” was considered in terms of “ignorance” in relation to the concept of “Banality of evil” raised by Hannah Arendt. This paper also pays attention to the possibility of a new solidarity between zombies and humans depicted in novels. This possibility can be seen as a search for solidarity between humans and zombies, beyond the solidarity between humans who survived from zombies. The paper enlightens a new relationship between a captor and a captive that dichotomous scale impossibly explains and presents a possible new story. As discussed above, as this study searches for the existence of ‘zombies’ that seldom appear in contemporary Korean novels, it clearly signifies the literary value of ‘zombies’ and further possible narratives concerning ‘zombies’. Furthermore, this study appreciates the extension of the existing ‘zombie narrative’ researches, which has been mainly focused on films.

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