Research Article
Ecological Unconsciousness and Ecological Ethics: Chung-jun Lee`s Fictions
Sogang Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University
Published: August 2010 · Vol. 29 No. 2 · pp. 187-217
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33334/sieas.2010..59.187
Full Text
Abstract
For Chung-jun Lee, fiction is a form of ‘dream woven with words’; it is spun with the liberty and truths of an individual and the longing for forgiveness and love. Lee tries to delve into and combine liberty and oppression, forgiveness and revenge, ideal and reality, existential language and relational language, and individual truth and collective fantasy. He also yearns for the ecological wholeness that has been sacrificed in the name of modernization. In terms of deep ecology, his works concern the loss of ecological wholeness and the drama of recovery. In particular, the symbol of a path that is plunged into the darkness of night and walked by a solitary wayfarer as a representation of an ecological unconscious is emphasized in the second half of his career. This narrative itinerary brings back ecological unconsciousness, which has been repressed by the modernity-related rupture and insanity. In this respect, it is worth paying attention to the three attitudes of Lee’s ecological ethics: embracing, waiting, and burying. The ethical attitude of compassion and embracing, which is remarkable in “Bird and Tree,” reminds us of the deep truthfulness of humankind as the basis of our daily lives. The attitude of waiting, as we can see in “Bird and Tree,” “Rainbird Story,” Feast, and A Paradise of Your Own, is a significant virtue in terms of the symbiosis that we ought to seek for. The last one of burying, as revealed in the later works such as “Basement” and “Strange Present,” makes it possible for the members of the communities to conceal and hide deep truths rather than expose them to the scandalous eyes of others so that the light of truth can paradoxically shine. The attitudes are quintessential in making Lee’s world of the dream woven with words.
