기후소설(Cli-Fi)의 디스토피아적 서사 담론과 그 현실적 함의 -최정화의 「벙커가 없는 자들」을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper, focusing on the severity of the climate crisis and its literary potential, explores the narrative imagination and real-world implications of climate fiction, with a focus on Choi Jeong-hwa's Those Without Bunkers. In this novel, the climate crisis extends beyond a simple environmental issue to encompass human survival, social exclusion, and inequality. Through narrative imagination, it depicts a global crisis that fundamentally disrupts human existence and the conditions of life. The limitations of weather control, a technological advancement, exemplify various aspects of a dystopian world, demonstrating that the climate crisis brings about a fundamental disintegration of human existence and a loss of identity. Furthermore, the persistence of climate disasters raises ethical dilemmas, prompting reflection on the ethics of technology and survival. In other words, the ethical dilemmas evoked by climate disasters create a space for reflecting on ethics and responsibility in the present. In addition, the recollection of ecological sensitivity and human senses can foster the restoration of humanity's capacity for empathy. Climate fiction demonstrates its potential to transform the structural problems of the climate crisis, which are often abstracted or quantified by social sciences, into concrete human experiences, serving as a medium for expanding policy imagination and social practice. Through this, Those Without Bunkers stands out as a type of Korean climate fiction, demonstrating a distinctive ethical and aesthetic approach to responding to the ecological crisis. This paper is also significant as a study that examines the social role of literature. Keywords:This paper, focusing on the severity of the climate crisis and its literary potential, explores the narrative imagination and practical implications of climate fiction, with a focus on Choi Jeong-hwa's Those Without Bunkers. In this novel, the climate crisis extends beyond a simple environmental issue to encompass human survival, social exclusion, and inequality. Through narrative imagination, it depicts a global crisis that fundamentally disrupts human existence and the conditions of life. The limitations of weather control, a technological advancement, exemplify various aspects of a dystopian world, demonstrating that the climate crisis brings about a fundamental disintegration of human existence and a loss of identity. Furthermore, the persistence of climate disasters raises ethical dilemmas, prompting reflection on the ethics of technology and survival. In other words, the ethical dilemmas evoked by climate disasters create a space for reflecting on ethics and responsibility in the present. In addition, the recollection of ecological sensitivity and human senses can foster the restoration of humanity's capacity for empathy. Climate fiction demonstrates its potential to transform the structural problems of the climate crisis, which are often abstracted or quantified by social sciences, into concrete human experiences, serving as a medium for expanding policy imagination and social practice. Through this, Those Without Bunkers stands out as a type of Korean climate fiction, demonstrating a distinctive ethical and aesthetic approach to responding to the ecological crisis. This paper is also significant as a study that examines the social role of literature.