การศึกษาเปรียบเทียบรูปแบบความตาย ในเรื่อง “จนตรอก” ของไทย และ เรื่อง “บอลลูกเล็กที่คนแคระยิงขึ้นฟ้า” ของเกาหลี

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the aspects of death in the Thai novel No Way Out and the Korean novel A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball, especially Boonma’s attempt of committing suicide and the death of the dwarf, thereby comparing the meaning of death of characters and social problems that emerged during the process of industrialization in Korea and Thailand. Thailand and Korea experienced rapid industrialization during 1960-70, with the government implementing development policies focused on big cities. In the process, countless people fell into poverty as they had to stay in the periphery after failing to make it to the center of the city, which constituted a social problem for both countries. The Thai novel No Way Out and the Korean novel A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball each portrays the particular social aspect through a tragic story of a poor urban family. The life of Boonma and Kim Bu-ri, a dwarf as the leader of the family describes the lives of the urban poor who are marginalized in society during the process of industrialization distinctly. Boonma, the main character of No Way Out, kills Dum, his youngest son and attempts committing suicide when he concludes that the misfortune of family is his fault. Meanwhile, the dwarf in A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball thinks that he is a burden to his family because he is not able to play a role as the family leader, so he launches a paper airplane and a little metal ball towards the moon on the top of the factory smokestack and falls to his death at the end. The aspects of death in both stories symbolize the death of people who are marginalized in the distorted social structure, as well as the failure of the urban poor in the capitalist economy. A little ball which the dwarf launches is a single cry of people who is marginalized and powerless against logic of exploitation and oppression. A cry of Boonma at night in jail is also a scream of people who is defeated which is not transferred to the outside. Their attempts to find the exit from the closed world turn up as their deaths.