언어로 존재 증명해 내기: 『14호 수용소 탈출』을 중심으로

Abstract

Like other North Korean refugee narratives, Escape from Camp 14 covers troublesome issues of persecution, torture, hunger, rape, or execution, which occurred circa the 1990s and is commonly called “the Arduous March”(or “the March of Suffering”). In their painful retrospect, refugee narrators often confess that these distressing incidents cause “belated” sense of anxiety and related-emotional malfunction. In the case of Shin Dong-hyuk, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) trigger him to be physically overwhelmed such as paralysis or self-torture, along with psychological effects. Based on Shin's traumatic experience in the totalitarian state, this paper examines the intersectional connection between experience, trauma, and language in Escape from Camp 14. First, I trace the ways in which Shin's experience is related not only to his own incidents but also to the lives of his family and other prisoners. Shin's narrative itself verifies how our experience is collective and thus how life narrative is relational. Focusing on Shin's escape to South Korea and eventually to the United States, I then examine disturbing symptoms that have been mostly caused by various types of violence in the internment camp and still threaten his current refugee life. Finally, this paper studies the ways in which Shin employs language to understand and possibly overcome his traumatic past. Despite of being sometimes tagged as a “tainted witness” by various groups, Shin's narrative unveils an authentic gesture that an individual is able to cultivate out of a sheer chaotic time-space(Gilmore 3).