• Journal of Ginseng Culture
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• v.4
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• pp.38-58
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• 2022

Park Wan-seo's novels deal with realistic topics of society, such as women's issues, the capitalist system, and the problems that come with old age. Assuch, her work is used as a tool to analyze social phenomena in various fields, such as women's studies, sociology, and literature. A characteristic style of Park Wan-seo's novels is that she bases them on her own experiences. However, among her novels, the novel Mimang is exceptional. The plot is based on stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. This is to show the spirit of the times through the unforgettable story of her hometown, Gaesong. Mimang is the story of a family chronology that spans four generations centered on Chun Cheu-Man and his family, who became powerful capitalists through the cultivation and commerce of ginseng cultivation. Set in the late 19th century until the end of the Korean War, the novel unravels the essence of the times symbolized by merchants of ginseng and Gaeseong, focusing on the actions of people living in a period of historical turbulence. Gaeseong is the mecca of Korean ginseng, and Gaeseong cannot be portrayed without the story of ginseng and its merchants. Therefore, Mimang, a fictionalized story based on real facts, contains valuable testimony of the history of ginseng, not only as historical values of modern history and personal customs but also as microhistory. In the novel, traces of the times of Gaeseong and the spirit of ginseng merchants, as shown in the Japanese sacking of ginseng during the colonial period, the resistance of ginseng merchants, and the conversion of ginseng capitalism to modern capitalism, are imprinted like fossils. What is especially meaningful is that the stories in the novel correspond to historical facts and constitute a chapter in the history of ginseng. The symbolism of ginseng in the novel can be explained in three main ways. First, it shows the essence of Korean ginseng. It reveals the soul of ginseng through the sincerity and rigor of ginseng farming, as well as the spirit and pride of ginseng. Second, it symbolizes the exploitation of ginseng in Japan as a national issue. The efforts of ginseng merchants to protect this and support the independence movement are presented as important themes to express nationalism. Third, it shows the modern capitalist progressiveness of Gaeseong ginseng merchants, who do not stay in landownership and commercial capital, but convert them to productive capital and contribute to society by modernizing them. The three symbolisms show the spirit of the times of the Gaeseong ginseng merchants, clearly revealing the meaningful relationship between the Korean people and ginseng.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.217-247
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• 2019

This research paper intends to examine the intertextuality of Klaus Mann's novel Mephisto (1936) and István Szabó's film Mephisto (1981) and how the derivative contents (i.e., film) accepted and improved the schematic aesthetics of conviction in original contents (i.e., novel). In general, the aesthetics of conviction is applied to criticize the state socialism of the artists of the Third Reich or the ideology of the artists of East Germany from a biased ethical perspective. Mephisto is also based on the aesthetics of conviction. Thus, it would be meaningful to examine the characteristic similarity and difference between Klaus Mann's real antagonist (i.e., Gustaf Gründgens) and fictional antagonist (i.e., Hendrik Höfgen) from a historical critical perspective. In this process, an aesthetic distance between the real and fictional antagonists would be secured through the internal criticism in terms of intertextuality. In this respect, the film aesthetics of István Szabó are deemed to overcome the schematic limit of the original novel. The conviction in both the novel and film of Mephisto pertains to the belief and stance of a person who compromised with the state socialism of Nazi Germany, i.e., succumbed to the irresistible history. Klaus Mann denounced Mephisto's character Höfgen (i.e., Gründgens in reality) as an "Mephisto with evil spirits" from the perspective of exile literature. For such denunciation, Klaus Mann used various means such as satire, caricature, sarcasm, parody and irony. However, his novel is devoid of introspection and "utopianism", and thus could be considered to allow personal rights to be disregarded by the freedom of art. On the contrary, István Szabó employed the two different types of evil (evil of Mephisto and evil of Faust) from a dualistic perspective (instead of a dichotomous perspective of good and evil) by expressing the character of Höfgen like both Mephisto and Hamlet (i.e., "Faust with both good and evil spirits). However, Szabó did not present the mixed character of "Mephisto and Hamlet (Faust)" only as an object of pity. Rather, Szabó called for social responsibility by showing a much more tragic end. As such, the novel Mephisto is more like the biography of an individual, and the film Mephisto is more like the biography of a generation. The aesthetics of conviction of Mephisto appears to overcome biased historical and textual perspectives through the irony of intertextuality between the novel and the film. Even if history is an irresistible "fate" to an individual, human dignity cannot be denied because it is the "value of life". The issue of conviction is not only limited to the times of Nazi Germany. It can also be raised with the ideology of the modern and contemporary history of Korea. History is so deeply rooted that it should not be criticized merely from a dichotomous perspective. When it comes to the relationship between history and individual life, a neutral point of view is required. Hopefully, this research paper will provide readers with a significant opportunity for finding out their "inner Mephisto" and "inner Hamlet."

• Korean Association of Arts Management
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• no.51
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• pp.5-34
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• 2019

This study is a qualitative study conducted to identify environmental factors that impede emerging artists' ongoing creative activities, focusing on the local cultural ecosystem that they are part of. By doing so, we tried to understand the dynamics between key stake holders in the ecosystem that these young artists interact with and how they build and perceive their own, local cultural environment. The central research question of this study is: what factors impede the continuous creative activities of young artists and what causes them to leave local art scenes? The research was conducted thoroughly on the basis of emerging artists' experience and perspectives and applied to Creative Sector Holistic Model for analysis. The data of this research were collected based on two national-funding projects to support young artists from 2016 to 2018. The main research method of this study was interviews: official and casual interviews were executed with 29 young artists aged 20-34 who work in the fields of painting, literature, sculpture, video, korean traditional music, visual design and crafts. For the analysis of the data, the Creative Sector Holistic Model(Wyszomirski, 2008), which had applied the ecological logic to the creative industries, was applied. The result of this study shows that economic difficulties were not the only hindering factor in their sustainable art-making process. Various impeding factors derived from the local cultural ecosystem have been identified within the Holistic Model, demonstrating that these factors are all intertwined and connected. Thus, analyzing and understanding one's local cultural ecosystem can provide keys to long-term and lasting impacts when a local authorities wish to support young artists for the future of local cultural environment.