Bruce Fulton

interextual parody tradition modernity Confinement

In this essay I discuss two canonical modern Korean fictional works, Yi Sang’s “Nalgae” (1936) and Kim Sŭngok’s “Sŏul, 1964-nyŏn kyŏul” (1965), and a recent parody of each—Kim Sŏkhŭi’s “Yi Sang ŭi nalgae” (1988) and Chŏn Chinu’s “Sŏul, 1986-nyŏn yŏrŭm” (1987). The two source works continue to reverberate in Korea today. “Nalgae” and its creator are icons both in and increasingly outside of Korea and the story is a pivot between Korean tradition and Korean modernity, taking as its central image the wings that symbolically inform one of the best-known Korean folktales—“Namukkun kwa sŏnnyŏ.” Kim Sŭngok’s stories for their part are inextricably connected with the 1960s; they are atmospheric portraits of the malaise of a society struggling to find itself after the 1950–53 civil war, the April 1960 student revolution, and the May 1961 military coup. In all four works—the source texts and their retellings—the theme of confinement is trenchant.