불확실한 삶과 절대적 환대의 공동체 - 조해진 소설을 중심으로 = Uncertain Life and Community of absolute hospitality - Focusing on Jo Hae-jin’s Novels

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper explores the meaning of the "undisclosed community" that the "others" portrayed in Jo Hae-jin's novels subvert and reconstruct existing, exclusive communities. Jo Hae-jin's characters (orphans, international adoptees, immigrants, refugees, etc.) are deprived of their social rights and forced into the outside world by the political and economic demands of the modern nation-state. As individuals relocated outside the legal norm, existing research has primarily focused on their survival and ideological aspects.
However, this paper focuses on the process by which Jo Hae-jin expands and expands his short stories into a full-length novel, focusing on how the characters form a new community based on intersubjectivity. The others exist as active agents who intervene and intersect with each other's lives, forging new trajectories. Furthermore, the novel's form is structured in a way that, rather than shrinking from the suffering of others, they become "mirrors" to each other, reaching out to each other's hearts. In this process, individuals who have lost their names and places—such as the North Korean refugee "Ro Gi-wan," symbolized by the initial "L," the overseas adoptee "Mun-ju," and the mixed-race child "Bok-hee" from the camptown—are exposed as excluded by the state-produced "baby export industry" and the political geography of discrimination exemplified by neo-racism. "Simple Truth" depicts their return and the reconstructing of a post-familial community: the "Jung Woo-sik family," the "Henri-Lisa family," and the "alternative family" of "Chu Yeon-hee, Baek Bok-soon, and Nopa." This community transcends the illusion of exclusive perfection by practicing the "duty of compulsory sharing" and the "duty of presence" explained by the "ethics of the crowded bus." Furthermore, the novel "Light and Melody" establishes a transnational community that is post-national, post-racial, and post-familial, comprised of the "family of Kwon Eun, Anna, Salma, and Nascha." This is achieved through "The Journey of Light," "The Journey of Melody," and the convergence and expansion of these two journeys into "The Journey of Light and Melody." In particular, Kwon Eun's transition "outside the camera," where she objectifies the suffering of her subjects, signifies an ethical attitude toward others and the beginning of true solidarity.
In this way, Jo Hae-jin's novels narrate the vulnerable lives of individuals not captured in public records, and, like Agamben's concept of "contemporaneity," practice writing that perceives the darkness of the times and discovers its shadows. The hybrid form, which transcends the boundaries of "letter/diary/memoir/fiction," enables a "common experience without community," and through a non-hierarchical relationship of "transversal intervention," it presents a new community of "lowercase-humans." In conclusion, the community in Jo Hae-jin's novels emerges from the "undisclosed place of the people," where they are not defined by power but declare their own powerlessness (pp. 19-20). This exposes the contradictions of the world order by not remaining confined to the figure of Homo Sacer or the victim, but actively forging a new solidarity. Ultimately, Jo Hae-jin calls for unconditional hospitality for "beings whose lives cannot be measured," presenting a crucial challenge that can be expanded upon to consider the relationship between post-familial care and "multiple species" in recent Korean literature.