@article{ART001904195},
author={Hwang, Hoon-sung},
title={From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K},
journal={Journal of Modern English Drama},
issn={1226-3397},
year={2014},
volume={27},
number={2},
pages={245-268}
TY - JOUR
AU - Hwang, Hoon-sung
TI - From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K
JO - Journal of Modern English Drama
PY - 2014
VL - 27
IS - 2
PB - 한국현대영미드라마학회
SP - 245
EP - 268
SN - 1226-3397
AB - The absurd refers to the human predicament of existence where man is at odds with yet incapable of coming to terms with the external force which is unfathomable and sublime beyond his power and imagination. Distinct from the modern absurd, the postmodern absurd does not arise from the bankruptcy of man’s world view nor a despotic power. Rather the latter is generated from a watertight system of the Enlightenment project, as trenchantly criticized by Adorno. The world view constructed by the Enlightenment thinking has turned out to be paradoxically primitive and brutal, hence absurd.
Pledger’s K (2002) is an updated version of The Trial by Kafka. In reality, the audience can hear the same lines echoing in K’s words in The Trial albeit in a different context. Also, K is resonant with George Orwell’s 1984 fraught with all kinds of bureaucratic schemes wielding a manipulative and brainwashing power over the protagonist, “The Man”(K). Differently from the other two classics on the absurd human condition, Pledger’s K puts forth a new agenda, i.e., absurdity in the age of postmodernism. Against all odds, the protagonist in Pledger’s K makes a desperate endeavor to reclaim his modernist subjecthood by rebelling against the postmodern sublime, that is, the dehumanizing onslaught of postmodernization that encompasses commodification, mediatization and technological reification.
In short, the modern absurd inclines toward the ontological nature of the predicament of human existence, while the postmodern absurd tends to focus on epistemological concerns of how the human subject reflects on him/herself and perceives an object or environment. Kafka’s The Trial is thus a novel of the modern absurd which traces the protagonist’s spiritual journey of redemption in theological terms; Pledger’s K is, however, a tragic story about how the protagonist, ravaged by systematic surveillance and discipline, comes to lose his own identity and power to reason and perceive postmodern sublimes spawned by capitalism and globalization.
KW - Pledger;K;Kafka;Trial;Modern Absurd;Postmodern Absurd;Adorno;Enlightenment.
DO -
UR -
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Hwang, Hoon-sung. (2014). From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K. Journal of Modern English Drama, 27(2), 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. 2014, "From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K", Journal of Modern English Drama, vol.27, no.2 pp.245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung "From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K" Journal of Modern English Drama 27.2 pp.245-268 (2014) : 245.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K. 2014; 27(2), 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. "From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K" Journal of Modern English Drama 27, no.2 (2014) : 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K. Journal of Modern English Drama, 27(2), 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K. Journal of Modern English Drama. 2014; 27(2) 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K. 2014; 27(2), 245-268.
Hwang, Hoon-sung. "From a Modern Absurd to a Postmodern Absurd staged in David Pledger’s K" Journal of Modern English Drama 27, no.2 (2014) : 245-268.
