Mama and the Boarder & Is This Love

Hannah Lee

Professor Yang

“Is This Love” and “Mama and the Boarder”

        The hetero-diegetic narrative of Yi Kwangsu’s “Is This Love?” comes from the perspective of a homosexual male lover named Mungil, whereas Chu Yosōp’s “Mama and the Boarder” is from a first person, homo-diegetic narration of a six year old “widow’s girl” named Pak Ok-hui. Though the audience has a firsthand narrative of Ok-hui because of the homo-diegetic aspect, Mungil serves just enough or even equal levels of access to the emotions and feelings of characters within “Is this Love?” as well. Because both Ok-hui and Mungil speak with expressive, emotional language and descriptive adjectives, the hetero-diegetic narration does not stray from access to knowing the characters intimately.

        In “Is This Love,” Yi Kwangsu mixes first, second, and third person pronouns that have the reader second-guessing which perspective the story is taking place in. Especially when Mungil speaks in first person, such as on page four, he says, “I’m someone who despised suicide and who spat whenever I saw an article about a suicide. But now I’m going to commit suicide myself. Isn’t it strange?” This quotation and question makes it seem as if Mungil is personally talking to me and asking for my opinion on his suicide. The way that Yi mentions Mungil’s family background on page three, also provides more intimacy with the main character because we can see the way his emotions have formed based on his past. Additionally, Yi uses figurative language in each step and thought that Mungil encounters while waiting for Misao, such as “his heart pounded like a drum” (Yi 1) and “a swarm of mosquitoes came in for attack” (Yi 2).

        Chu Yosōp’s “Mama and The Boarder” gives us a child-like narrative from the eyes of Ok-Hui who is discerning the actions of Mother and Big Uncle, so many times during the story, Ok-Hui is either confused or unsure of happenings around her. This makes the story more personal because we can see the insecurities of Mother while realizing the carefree attitude of Ok-Hui. In the novel, we can see the uncertainty of Ok-Hui’s understanding between Mother and Big Uncle at church when Ok-Hui says, “Mother was mad till the end of the service. All she did was look straight ahead at the pulpit. She didn’t look down and give me a smile once in a while like she usually did. When I looked over at the men’s side to see the uncle, he didn’t once look back at me but just sat there mad. Mother didn’t look at me either but just kept grabbing me and pulling me down-it was too much. Why was everyone cross with me?” In this situation, it is not necessarily Ok-Hui’s fault but she thinks it is; in this sense, the readers have a more intimate role in the story because they know what is going on but not the main character herself.