Abstract

  이희구    "예루살렘 공성전"과 "워킹 데드": 서구 피포위 심리 연구  1 ~ 30   Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Volume 25 No. 2 (2017)
    [Lee Hee Goo Siege of Jerusalem and Walking Dead: A Study on Western Siege Mentality] 


We find the same mentality in these two very different narratives with an enormous time gap: Siege of Jerusalem, an alliterative poem of the 14th century and the Walking Dead, a zombie apocalypse graphic novel of the 21st century. Both narratives are centered around siege warfare where Roman soldiers and zombies lay siege respectively to Jews behind walls and to survivors inside a prison, and develope the extreme fear of being surrounded and killed by enemies. This siege mentality explains the ways in which a nation (an individual) reacts to hostile situations of real/imaginary isolations. Siege of Jerusalem retells a traditional narrative of vindicta salvatoris whose anti-semitism caused its unusual popularity among 14th century English people who had anxiety and fear of being surrounded by Jews with their blood libel and monetary might. Sadistic enjoyment of violence on Jewish others was justified by political theology of exception status (Christians) and “bare life”(Jews). Walking Dead reflects fear of others in the US in the form of a zombie narrative. The prison episode depicts a situation in which survivors are stranded in a prison surrounded by zombies. Prison in the narrative is a felicitous metaphor of America surrounded by terrorist attacks as well as prisons themselves full of young black Americans. Unlike the Roman emperors and the soldiers of Siege of Jerusalem, the American survivors in the prison of the graphic novel are justified to use merciless violence on zombie others (and readers are allowed to enjoy the pleasure of it) only because of the pretense of being victims in the zombie apocalypse. This self-victimization in the narrative mirrors the ethics of the formal democracy and political correctness against the others. It is with critical comparison of the two narratives that this paper aims to ask ethical questions of how we can love our neighborly others within a western/westernized construct of siege mentality.

Keywords

"예루살렘 공성전", "워킹 데드", 피포위 공포, 이웃, 폭력
Siege of Jerusalem, Walking Dead, siege mentality, neighbor, violence