ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This paper is an intrinsic study on the response to disgust of pollution disease literature based on the Minamata disease case. The text analyzed is Ishimure Michiko's novel, “Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow”. Minamata disease, which can be said to be the first and largest environmental pollution experienced by mankind, was officially confirmed to exist in 1956, and was recognized as a pollution disease by the Japanese government in 1968. However, the process of identifying the disease that was called a plague was difficult, and demands for compensation for damages and official recognition as a patient have expanded into lawsuits that are still ongoing. In the process, Minamata disease patients and their families became the targets of serious discrimination and Disgust both within and outside the region. “Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow” is a documentary and practical literature that embodies the sociality and politics of literature triggered by industrial accidents through the voices of the parties based on locality. This paper attempted an internal approach to the issues of discrimination and hatred triggered by the Minamata disease incident and countermeasures through an analysis of Parts 1 and 2 of “Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow”. First, I examined the background and context of discrimination/disgust, examined its motives, and sought countermeasures based on this. This work is intended to think about practical ways to respond to disgust at a time when disgust surrounding disease, region, disability, gender, etc. is erupting. Discrimination and disgust are directed at Minamata disease patients and their families, as well as the entire local community, throughout the entire incident. The spatiality of an underdeveloped and marginalized area, the affect of reluctance and disgust due to unidentified disease, and the deformity and disability of the patient accelerate the disgust pattern. What is more problematic is that the hatred is becoming more blatant within the region, intertwined with two aspects: concerns about the collapse of the local economic foundation, ‘Chitso’, and jealousy about the payment of patient compensation. Also, Self-disgust is another prominent mechanism of disgust, no less than the local, psychological, physical, and material causes of disgust. How do Minamata disease victims fight against disgust, and what drives the response to disgust? ‘Empathy and solidarity’ are both methods and results of responding to disgust, but more importantly, what is the foundation that makes empathy and solidarity possible? The first is ‘anger’ as an internal response to oppression and disgust that threaten existence. The second is ‘listening’ based on the ethics of listening that respects the silence of the victim. The last chapter of Part 2 of the novel, in which patients, their families, civic activists, discriminated villagers, and student activists come together to protest at the ‘Chitso’ Osaka shareholders' meeting, is a place to practice empathy and solidarity that transcends differences. Recognizing the unbridgeable gap between the parties and non-parties, not by identifying with the other, and ‘finding another language of empathy’. “Paradise in the Sea of Sorrow” says that only from this can true empathy and solidarity to overcome disgust begin.

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