This study focuses on how illustrations in newspaper serial fiction fundamentally alter the way readers read, enriching the experience of reading both cognitively and emotionally. The appreciation of illustrations alongside serialized fiction, as oppo...
This study focuses on how illustrations in newspaper serial fiction fundamentally alter the way readers read, enriching the experience of reading both cognitively and emotionally. The appreciation of illustrations alongside serialized fiction, as opposed to a linear reading of the text alone, demands of the reader a more complex and multifarious reading practice. Therefore, this study analyzes the cognitive and emotive effects produced when illustrations enter the reading process, beyond the basic level of interpreting narrative meaning. This is an attempt to break with previous research regarding illustrations as a secondary aid in narrative interpretation, and instead recognize illustrations as an object of equal analytical status to the text of the novel or story.
In working from this perspective, I draw upon cognitive narratology’s concept of the storyworld. A storyworld is the world cognitively constructed by the reader in the process of understanding the narrative, and illustrations serve as visual cues that help this world develop more organically and actively. Of particular interest is the way in which illustrations intensify the emotive function readers experience as they inhabit the storyworld. As this emotive experience intensifies, the storyworld persists into the reader’s real world, functioning as a cognitive resource that enables new views of reality.
In this study, I examine illustrations in colonial-era private newspapers, from first publication in March 1920 to forced closure in August 1940, as this era succinctly reveals the process by which serial fiction illustration formats take shape and develop over time. This examination is not limited to analysis of image and text but also considers how practical realities of newspaper businesses and the newspaper’s medial conditions influence reading practices. Offering a periodization based on illustrators’ movements between newspaper companies, I then focus on the changing visual status of illustrations on the newspaper page in each period, analyzing how illustrations enter into the reader’s construction of the storyworld.
Chapter two deals with the period from 1920 to 1926. In this period, illustrators are active for relatively brief stints as they move without permanent positions between various newspapers, and serial fiction illustrations function as ‘monopolizing images,’ fully capturing the reader’s vision on the page. Illustrations of this period present objects that the reader has never encountered, serving to visualize these objects for the first time. Section one offers analysis of early serial fiction illustrations in Donga Ilbo, namely Go Hui-dong’s illustrations for Iron Mask (Musoetal) and An Seok-yeong’s illustrations for Ecstasy (Hwanhui) and Live Again (Jaesaeng). These illustrations depict faces and facial expressions of characters, thereby visualizing the characters’ emotions. As a result, the reader discovers the characters as individuals with emotions and interiority. Section two analyzes An Seok-yeong’s illustrations for Bel-Ami (Yeombok), serialized in Sidae Ilbo, as well as No Su-hyeon and Yi Sang-beom’s illustrations for Hot Wind (Yeolpung) in Joseon Ilbo. These illustrations introduce unfamiliar foreign scenery, clearly highlighting its otherness or, contrastingly, reconstituting it in a familiar way. As a result, readers locate themselves in the unfamiliar space, experiencing an expansion of the perceptual dimension. In this way, the illustrations of this period make visible unfamiliar characters and settings, leading the reader to perceive them as elements in the composition of the storyworld. Accordingly, the range of objects included in the storyworld expands, broadening its external extensions as well. In addition, as the characters and settings are conceived in greater detail, the reader’s emotive experience intensifies. This experience leads to new perceptions of objects that previously went unnoticed, ultimately serving to expand the reader’s purview of reality.
Chapter three deals with the period from 1927 to 1935. In this period, illustrators become established as representative figures at each newspaper, and serial fiction illustrations function as ‘distinguished images,’ existing alongside other images on the page but maintaining a strong presence. As competition between newspapers intensifies, various experimental formats emerge to emphasize the visual effect of illustrations, and illustrations serve to reveal the internal level of the storyworld. Section one analyzes the illustrations for the film-novel Elegy of the Monk’s Chamber (Seungbang bigok), serialized in Joseon Ilbo. The illustrations, through the medium of film images, portray the faces and interiority of the characters in great detail, helping the reader to perceive each character as a unique, individual being. Section two deals with the linked novel To the Wasteland (Hwangwonhaeng), serialized in Donga Ilbo. The individual styles of several illustrators are set alongside each other in this work, emphasizing their differences and effectively highlighting the character’s development. As a result, the reader feels a strong sense of the character’s personality and appeal. Section three analyzes the expression of Joseon-ness in illustrations from each major newspaper. Focusing on illustrations by Yi Sang-beom for Yi Sun-sin and Soil (Heulk) in Donga Ilbo, An Seok-yeong for Hometown (Gohyang) in Joseon Ilbo, and No Su-hyeon for Holy Mother (Seongmo) in Joseon Jungang Ilbo, I examine how these representative illustrators for each newspaper depict Joseon-ness in their own personal style. These illustrations imbue the storyworld with an atmosphere of Joseon-ness, arousing the national consciousness of the reader. In this way, the illustrations of this period represent the invisible dimension of the characters’ personality and interiority, the atmosphere of the setting, and abstract values such as Joseon-ness. In making even the internal level of the fictional world an object of representation, these illustrations deepen the storyworld, which is hereby experienced not simply as a collection of things and events but as a space with emotional texture. This functions to intensify the reader’s modern perspective of reading beyond the visible surface to the invisible deeper level.
Chapter four deals with the period from 1936 to 1940. In this period, the system centered on established illustrators is dismantled as new illustrators emerge, and illustrations in serial fiction function as ‘interacting images,‘ relating to various other images on the page. The illustrations of this period permeate the everyday life of the reader, encouraging perception of an overlapping storyworld and real world. Through such illustrations, the reader vicariously experiences situations difficult to encounter in everyday life. With this perspective in mind, section one analyzes Kim Gyu-taek’s illustrations for the comedy novels Husband-Awaiting Stone (Mangbuseok) and Mrs. Seongnyeo (Seongnyeo Ssi) and Kim Nae-seong’s illustrations for the mystery novels Hypothetical Criminal (Gasang beomin) and Demon (Main), all serialized in Joseon Ilbo. These illustrations visualize unrealistic situations arising from jokes between a married couple and provide concrete representations of crime scenes, such as the scene of a murder. Through the medium of illustration, readers indirectly enact these unordinary situations. Section two analyzes Hong Seung-deuk’s illustrations for Quiescence (Jeongmyeol) and Youth (Cheongchungi), serialized in Donga Ilbo, and Jeong Hyeon-ung’s illustrations for Aquarium of Love (Sarang ui sujokgwan), serialized in Joseon Ilbo. The illustrations realistically reproduce downtown Gyeongseong, offering intricate depictions of upper-class life as they draw in the context of external reality. Accordingly, plot events feel like the real experiences of another person, and the reader’s desires are satisfied vicariously. In this way, by encouraging the reader to perceive the storyworld overlapping the real world, illustrations of this period provide an indirect experience of situations difficult to encounter in everyday life. These experiences lead readers to develop a perspective attentive to the details of everyday life, encouraging new perceptions of the sensory and material world around them.
Illustrations are not limited to a supplementary point of reference in understanding the story at the level of narrative interpretation. On the contrary, they operate in a way distinct from the text of the story or novel, performing a unique visualization function to provide an enrichment and multifaceted expansion of the storyworld cognitively constructed by the reader. In particular, illustrations intensify the emotive function experienced by readers within the storyworld, and this experience persists into the real world, where it influences the development of the way in which the reader sees and perceives reality, the reader’s purview, viewpoint, or gaze. From this perspective, illustrations are revealed to be of equal or even greater importance than the text. The scenes and concerns made visible by this study’s focus on illustrations in newspaper serial fiction as a kind of Other, marginalized in both literary history and art history, are not limited to research on illustration alone. This approach not only expands our understanding of newspaper serial fiction, the modern novel, and Korean literature as a whole, but also offers meaningful suggestions for examining our current multimedia reading experience, in which image and text intersect in multiple dimensions. I hope this study will provide occasion to see these various issues with new eyes.