This study explored the trends of five plays, "The Chorus of New Cities and Citizens" (2004), "Ladder" (2009), "First Class Human" (2010) and "Pla-maid" (2015) under the theme of "Mammonism and Dehumanization" in the 2000-2020s. Through this, we looke...
This study explored the trends of five plays, "The Chorus of New Cities and Citizens" (2004), "Ladder" (2009), "First Class Human" (2010) and "Pla-maid" (2015) under the theme of "Mammonism and Dehumanization" in the 2000-2020s. Through this, we looked at the flow of young playwrights since 2000, which has been excluded from the discussion of the Sinchunmunye’s one act play festival, and identified the flow of mammonism and dehumanization embodied in this period. Pre-2000s established plays focused on social consensus. Since 2000 writers of Sinchunmunye noted that the subject has changed from joint to individual. This confirms that unlike previous discussions, the theme of the Sinchunmunye’s one act play festival is focused on individual 'humanity division'.
Korean dramas before 2000, which had been composed of narrative of struggle under the theme of social and political discourse, fought against hegemony. This pattern proves the situation in which Korean plays are sharply divided by ideology. Thus, the shift in dehumanization discourse since 2000 can be attributed to the rise of individuals following the transition to neoliberalism, along with the end of the discourse on democratization and industrialization. Consequently, the discourse on dehumanization raised by new writers during this period takes place in the form of an individual oppressed in a mammonism society.
Investigating the mammonism and dehumanization of Sinchunmunye’s one act play between 2000 and 2020 is also, looking into the transformation of Korean creative plays. Because the mammonism and dehumanization depicted in a one-act play are in line with looking at the changes in neoliberalism cast by Korean society. Dehumanization due to mammonism depicts individuals living in infinite competition by new playwrights. This reflection of reality stems from the detection of dangerous societies and individual crises by new writers. This means that writers aware dangerously of individuals on the verge of losing their personality due to a uniform mammonism order in Korean society. In the 2000s, Korean society faced an inhumane situation with extreme human division because it relocated individuals amid neo-liberal that cause elitism and infinite competition. The "mammonism and dehumanization" embodied in the work of a Sinchunmunye’s one act play festival in 2000s tends to reflect this social phenomenon. In the analysis of the five works mentioned above, the dehumanization human beings in a society uniformed by a mammonism order are either eliminated or reduced to tools in society. The inhumanity revealed in the five works clearly shows the problems and dangers of modern society by dealing with humans divided by mammonism and uniformity.
In conclusion, dehumanization in the Sinchunmunye’s one act play festival between 2000 and 2020 shapes discourse in which individual subjects are mechanically exterminated through monification of mammonism. New writers maintain a critical view of neo-liberal society and seek reflection from modern people based on elitism and infinite competition. In addition, attempts have been made to rebuild the humanity of individuals divided and alienated by the uniformity of mammonism. These attempts an alternative society of Korea that rate No. 1 suicide among OECD countries except for the year 2007 from 2003 to 2019. Revealing fear of mammonism and dehumanization, such strategies include the possibility of being interpreted as a resistance move to reject uniformed violence by mammonism. Encouraging fear of a barbaric society where no humanity is found and where fighting is everything. As such, the trend of "mammonism and dehumanization" in the Sinchunmunye’s one act play in the 2000s and 2020s is an attempt to build new humanity by dealing with dehumanized humans to break down the neoliberal evils.