This study set out to analyze the novels of Kim Yu-jeong in
connection with the Carnival Theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, demonstrate that his novels had carnival characteristics, and examine the significance of his novels in the history of literature. Bak...
This study set out to analyze the novels of Kim Yu-jeong in
connection with the Carnival Theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, demonstrate that his novels had carnival characteristics, and examine the significance of his novels in the history of literature. Bakhtin's Carnival Theory well shows the literary characteristics of "overturning reality" to change a negative reality into a positive one.
Kim Yu-jeong's novels basically have such a possibility in that they were written in the negative social reality of Japanese rule during the 1930s.
His novels had the following carnival characteristics: first, the main characters of his works are poor people or women, who try to gain strength to confront the unequal, absurd, and poor reality by using the carnival agora language. The laughter penetrating through his works is the carnival laughter liberating the people and women from the world threatening life and powerful force such as destiny.
His works present an overturn of the weak becoming the strong and vice versa. We can also observe ambivalence to pursue unification instead of confrontation in his novels. In his Autumn, "I," an intellectual, have conflicts and worries over the current situation via the diverse internal voices, which presents "polyphony." Kim tried to overcome the tragedy of individual and the times in a healthy way
by showing human trust and love for the situations of crisis and deficiency through the "chronotope of crisis and deficiency."
His novels helped the readers understand the 1930s by realistically showing them the contradicting society and absurd human aspects.
In his novels, exaggeration, laughter, and overturn offer women and people, who were the powerless weak during the Japanese colonial regime, the strength to overcome a negative reality in a healthy manner. In addition, his rhetorical expressions in his novels make a contribution to the heightened aesthetic status of Korean language.
Many scholars are continuing research on his novels even after a century since his birth, which demonstrates that his works not only represent Korean literature in the 1930s, but also hold a critical place in the history of Korean novels. Furthermore, readers show more and more interest and love for his works beyond boundaries and times, which is a hint for the possible globalization of his novels.