Traditional and Contemporary Korean Popular Culture
A Bully in the Classroom ? Teaching Our Twisted Hero : A Modern Korean Classic Our Twisted Hero by Yi Munyol
HYPRION , 2001
ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY KEVIN O ’ ROURKE 128 PAGES , ISBN : 978-0786866700 , HARDBACK
By Constance Vidor with Michelle Schullo , Richard Sandler , and Sarah Campbell
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Our Twisted Hero is a novel as dichotomous and complex as Korea itself . It is a classic political allegory , a snapshot of a particular time and place , and a portrait of the human condition . The narrator , Han Pyongt ’ ae , a twelve-year-old boy whose family has been transferred from Seoul to a rural town , expects to be welcomed as being more sophisticated because of his schooling in the capital . On the contrary , he encounters a harrowing year of elementary school when his spirit is crushed by the class bully , Om Sokdae . Pyongt ’ ae recalls how the teacher ’ s connivance , the other students ’ conformist support for Sokdae , and Pyongt ’ ae ’ s parents ’ indifference inexorably force Pyongt ’ ae to submit to Sokdae ’ s domination . Sokdae uses force and charm to manipulate his victims in his role as class monitor . Pyongt ’ ae ’ s initial resistance gives way after he is singled out for punishments and socially ostracized for months on end . The school year concludes with the students cheating to enable Sokdae to claim top academic honors .
Han Pyongt ’ ae is appalled at the others ’ unwillingness to depose the bully , and tries to take it upon himself to rectify the situation . His attempts to inform on Sokdae only make Pyongt ’ ae even more ostracized by his schoolmates . Desperate for inclusion , the would-be reformer becomes the corrupt monitor ’ s right hand man .
When a new teacher takes over the class in the following school year , he becomes suspicious of the conformist , passive mood of the class . He begins to see the corruption crippling the class and forces Sokdae and the other students to confess to the cheating and bullying by beating them . He tries to impress on them that admitting the truth of their oppression is the only way to resist acquiescing to injustice in their later lives .
Pyongt ’ ae ’ s initial relief at the possibility of freedom from Sokdae ’ s domination changes to repugnance and disillusion as he witnesses Sokdae ’ s humiliation and the other students ’ sudden abandonment of their hero . “ They seemed to me no more than traitors who had waited for Sokdae to fall before jumping on him and walking all over him .”
For all its significant political overtones , Our Twisted Hero is the personal story of an individual child struggling with the all-too-common dynamics of bullying and conformism that will immediately engage high school and college readers .
The bully ’ s downfall is neither simple nor complete . The students struggle with creating a more democratic system in their classroom , and Sokdae exacts revenge by savagely attacking his former classmates on their way home from school . Violence is again shown as the effective solution as the teacher encourages and even manipulates some students into ganging up and beating Sokdae . Pyongt ’ ae contrasts the chaotic nature of democratic systems with the “ convenience and efficiency ” of Sokdae ’ s rule .
Sokdae casts a long shadow over Pyongt ’ ae ’ s life , as reflections on his former tormentor and his own complicity in Sokdae ’ s rule haunt his thoughts into adulthood . Pyongt ’ ae imagines Sokdae has gone on to a life of power and privilege , an image that is shattered when he sees the former bully being arrested and dragged through the streets in chains .
Pyongt ’ ae ’ s reaction encapsulates the novel ’ s tone of compassionate irony : “ he had none of the tragic beauty of a fallen hero nor anything else special about him ; he was just one among the poor ineffectual lot of us .”
As political allegory , Our Twisted Hero outlines the dynamics of fear and control that are familiar throughout history . Set in Korea during the 1960s , the book specifically references the April 19 Student Revolution of 1960 , during which police killed 142 students who were protesting the fraudulent presidential election of Syngman Rhee . Rhee , himself a kind of “ twisted hero ,” achieved early fame as a great patriot for Korea ’ s independence , but evolved quickly into a dictator who used torture and murder to stifle opposition .
Our Twisted Hero is a story that begins with good versus evil and progresses into increasingly morally ambiguous territory . What degree of responsibility do the students have who supported Sokdae ? When even Pyongt ’ ae eventually submits , isn ’ t it clear that resistance is useless ? What are we to think of the author ’ s presentation of violence as the only effective solution to tyranny ? Has the class merely exchanged one bully for a somewhat more enlightened bully in the form of the teacher ? Is this a novel of hopelessness ? Or is this
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