Part 1
처음 ~ 아저씨와 말을 나누기 전까지
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My Idiot Uncle
A young shop clerk who works for a Japanese merchant tells us, at great length and with total confidence, why his uncle is a hopeless fool. The uncle studied at a university in Tokyo, yet he earns nothing and lies sick at home while his long-suffering wife supports him. As the nephew talks on, readers may start to wonder which of the two really deserves the title of fool.
Satire through an unreliable narratorCollaboration and assimilation under colonial ruleThe fate of conscientious intellectuals in the late colonial periodWho is truly foolish
Public domain: the author died in 1950 and the work was published in 1938, so its copyright has ended in Korea, the US and the EU. Everything written here is our own; no translation is copied.
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Characters
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- 나(조카) Me (the nephew) A confident young clerk at a Japanese-owned shop who is sure his uncle is a fool.
- 아저씨 The Uncle A Tokyo-educated intellectual who came out of prison ill and still will not abandon his convictions.
- 아주머니 The Aunt A patient woman who supports her sick husband with her own hands despite years of hardship.
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Part 2
아저씨와 말을 나누는 장면 ~ 끝
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