Criticism of Western Modern Self-concept in Choi In-hoon's Novel: Focusing on the Comparison Between The Picture of Dorian Gray and “Thought on the Mask”

Abstract

Choi In-Hoon's “Thought on the Mask” pursues the novelian task of postwar Koreans' self-discovery. This story, like The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, deals with the theme of Renaissance people's dream of self-fulfillment and shows that pursuing the Western self-concept emphasizing faithfulness to oneself to the end will result in the tragedy of self-division and alienation of the others. By referring to Dorian Gray's trial and error, it suggests a process of self-exploration of properties that reversed it. And by introducing the concept of self-liberation from Buddhism in the ending, the theme of self-exploration in modern Western novels was completed as an oriental self-discovery, and formally, the possibility of cultural decolonization is discovered by producing a dramatic story of transformation and self-liberation that is different from the typical narrative structure of a modern Western novel. Lastly, Choi In-hoon shows the complexity of the task of cultural decolonization, which must be approached from the perspective of multilayered mutual criticism, breaking away from the simple logic of the East instead of the West by overlaying a frame that criticizes this ending again outside the story.