The characters in Han Kang's novels are traumatized by the events that happened in their daily lives. Their trauma manifests itself in various aspects. The manifestation of trauma reveals the concealed side of a person. In other words, through the man...
The characters in Han Kang's novels are traumatized by the events that happened in their daily lives. Their trauma manifests itself in various aspects. The manifestation of trauma reveals the concealed side of a person. In other words, through the manifestation of trauma, one can know the real inner facet of a person. Therefore, the research on the manifestation pattern of trauma has great significance. In consideration to this point, this study examined the manifestation of trauma towards the characters who suffer from trauma due to death, human relations, and frustration of reality in Han Kang's novel.
The trauma of the characters in Han Kang's novel originates from death. The protagonists suffered from guilt due to the death of their family. Those who felt guilty first punished themselves through self-suppression. Their families died in exceptional cases. However, the protagonists thought that they had given up their families because of their own mistake. As an atonement, they punished themselves by their true oppression. Because they do not know the inevitability of death, they cause the death of others by themselves.
The protagonists then made atonement through the projection of their sins. A life was killed by the actions of others. Death here is indirectly related to the protagonists. Unable to bear the pain of death alone, they tried to save themselves by projecting their sins onto others. As can be seen from the experiences of the protagonists, they fear death. The reason is that they cannot handle the pain of death alone.
The second trauma of Han Kang's novel was caused by human relationships. The protagonists here have been traumatized by various violence. Their trauma first appeared as a projection of the female image. Male protagonists were frustrated with their personal desires due to social violence. They forced the satisfaction of their desires by projecting frustrated personal desires onto women who matched their unconscious female image. With male coercion, women have lost their personal freedom. In this way, violence committed by society to individuals is projected onto women through male coercion, and the violence is circulated. Their experiences reveal the conflicts between society and individuals.
Next, trauma appeared as a modified sadism. The protagonists grew up as coldhearted and devoted people because they never properly suppressed their parental love when they were young. However, others hurt their pride or lost their power due to unintentional personality disorders. In this way, the violence committed by parents to the protagonists is inflicted on others in different forms and causes a cycle of violence. The cycle of violence induced by human relations reveals to Sarah that the pursuit of desire accompanies violence.
In the novels of the Han Kang, some people suffer from trauma due to the frustration of their reality. The manifestation pattern of their trauma first appeared in the form of an illusion. The protagonists felt hunger due to the loss of something. Those who could not find anything to satisfy their hunger in reality fell into a fantasy. However, this illusion is a pathological illusion. This is because they are pursuing an illusion from the beginning through fantasy. Their experiences show people that human suffering stems from the pursuit of vanity.
Trauma is also expressed as the character's refusal to welcome change. The protagonists of Han Kang's novels are afraid of changes in reality. Those who no longer want to experience change try to avoid it by pursuing utopian fantasies. However, the utopian fantasy has also changed exactly like the reality. Due to the destruction of the utopian space, they returned to reality and has to face change. Human life coexists with hope and despair. People can find a way out of frustration.
Death, human relations problems, and frustrations of the reality are common in people's daily lives. However, those who experienced these problems did not have the trauma like those in Han Kang's novel. For this reason, people may think that the manifestation pattern of this trauma is a characteristic that only the characters of Han Kang's novel possess. In fact, people feel the same way as the characters in the novel after experiencing a traumatic incident. However, people only suppress or ignore those feelings. Han Kang revealed the real inner facet of people after being shocked through the manifestation of the characters' trauma.