Shaman, Intruder, Parasite: Subversive Figures of the South Korean Identity Narratives (Bong Joon-Hoo\u27s Parasite and Kim Tong-Ni\u27s Ulhwa, The Shaman
Starting from a narratological point of view implying common ground of different cultural forms which have a narrative basis, this paper primarily deals with two exemplary works of South Korean art in recent decades – Kim Tong-ni\u27s novel Ulhwa the Shaman (1978) and Bong Joon-ho\u27s famous Parasite movie (2019).
Although belonging to different periods and different media, these important works share common features which testify to the significant phenomena of Korean social life. Generally speaking both of them show the collision of the old and the new, the traditional and the modern, eastern and western conceptions of life, beliefs of animism and consumerism, faith in the ethical values of ancestors and today\u27s pragmatic trust in technical progress, and solid material and financial status. The main narrative plot in both works is thereby set within family circles – in the Kim Tong-ni\u27s novel as a conflict between the parents\u27 and their descendants\u27 generations, and in the Bong Joon-ho\u27s film as a class confrontation of two families from different social strata.
As the main characters in the centre of these fictional and filmic narratives appear typical personalities of shaman, domestic intruder and social parasite, which embody conflicted attitudes towards life choices. Being particularly artistically shaped, they actually represent subversive figures that question the perpetuated identity conceptions of individuals and collectives. Despite ending differently – tragically or tragicomically – both works show that the conflict of values permanently determines the Korean social reality and self-conceptions of the modern and the contemporary age