하진의 『기다림』에 나타난 중국역사 재현과 쿵린의 비극적 삶

초록

This article discusses how Chinese American Writer Ha Jin’s Waiting represents the Maoist and post-Maoist communist regime through an individual’s tragic life. Jin’s Waiting covers the period from the 1960s to the 1980s, when the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath raged through China. Jin doesn’t depict the detailed tale of Red Guard destruction or the fervor of Mao Zedong idolization to deal with Chinese historical issues in Waiting. Rather, Jin examines how the Cultural Revolution affects common people who don’t actively participate in the Cultural Revolution and how individuals become the accomplices of a radical thought system by describing the tragic life of the novel’s protagonist Lin Kong. This paper also examines how Lin has repressed his sexual desire while struggling to survive in the military hospital in the era of the tyrannical and totalitarian regime. In doing so, Lin is described as losing his original self and his human senses such as desires, love, responsibilities, and empathy. Lastly this article also discusses that Lin’s tragedy could be an example that could happen to common people in any society or any country when they are oppressed or suffer from traumatic experience in a different form.

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