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Violence of Happiness Implanted in the Narrative of Abortion: With a Focus on A Dreaming Incubator by Park Wan-suh

  • Korean Language & Literature
  • 2021, (118), pp.75-102
  • DOI : 10.21793/koreall.2021.118.5
  • Publisher : Korean Language & Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Received : August 17, 2021
  • Accepted : September 7, 2021
  • Published : September 30, 2021

kim mi young 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This essay has focused on the issue of abortion by a female character that appeared in A Dreaming Incubator, a novel by Park Wan-suh. Through the abortion and inner turmoil of the female character, this work exposes the way in which the discourse surrounding happiness intervenes in the reproduction of the dominant system. To investigate this, this study examines the pressure that happiness exerts on the female character from the perspective of “consciousness-raising of unhappiness” and “the pain of loss” based on the happiness concept by Sara Ahmed. It is concluded that the female character is in fact able to be happy when she rejects a future that happiness suggests and instead chooses unhappiness. Additionally, it has confirmed that the female character must raise her consciousness of unhappiness and have the right to decide for the life of an “affect alien” because happiness has controlled the life of the female character within the given social structure. The novel emphasizes that the female character should raise her consciousness of the ambivalence of happiness and cut off the history of oppression imprinted on her body. The novel also says the female character can mourn the pain of loss by exercising the right to make decisions about her own “body.” Through this, she will be able to loosen the chain of emotions that was forced upon her.

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