The World of Miji

Synopsis

Face of Young Woman Precariat－Focusing on the Webtoon: The World of Mi-ji－(Korean treatise) Full (Korean)

This article attempts at interpreting sociologically the representation of Jo Mi-ji’s face appearing in the Webtoon entitled The World of Mi-ji, and also at analysing the social position and psychological disposition of the heroine. I distinguish two different types of face represented in the work, that is the monstrous face and the social face of Mi-ji. The monstrous face which appears at the moments of emotional eruption of the heroine shows the shrinking of the social in that the social relations between persons are overwhelmed by fear, hatred, animosity. The social face of Mi-ji symbolizes the precarious being. And the precarity embodied in Mi-ji’s face is the superposition of that of class, gender, and generation. Those three contradictions merge into the character of Mi-ji, and her world is none other than what is called nowadays in Korean society the ‘Hell-Choson’, at the center of which is situated the phenomenon of the weakening of the dream-capital.