ความย้อนแย้งในอุดมการณ์และการลิดรอนความเป็นมนุษย์ ในเรื่องเล่าบาดแผล เรื่อง Escape from Camp 14

Abstract

A traumatic narrative is a genre of literary work which ill-fated victims use to help readers to access to their traumatic experiences. This genre of literary work is also used as a therapeutic tool for healing victims’ painful experiences. The victim’s attempt to tell experiences is a way to review and re-interpret their traumatic past in order to come to terms with it and liberate themselves from a haunting nightmare. In Escape from Camp 14, written by Blaine Harden, the non-traumatized author, acts as a medium to narrate in excruciating detail the life and odyssey to freedom of Shin In Geun, an internment camp prisoner in North Korea. Shin’s narrative reveals the brutality of the North Korean communist regime led by the Kim family. Shin’s story also shows the ideological paradox of North Korea’s communism which hides atrocities and dehumanization behind a façade of upholding communist principles of equality among the people of all classes. This research paper focuses on the study of Shin’s traumatic narrative as a venue of constructing the victim’s identity and the representation of North Korea by Western media. My analysis of Shin’s narrative also reveals North Korea’s ideological paradox and the dehumanization occurring in prison camps in which political prisoners are incarcerated.