찰스
- Page
- 122
- Publication Date
- March 22, 2019
- ISBN
- 9788932035253
Told from a rooster’s perspective, the story discloses and criticizes the hypocrisy of people.
Seongho Garden is a small restaurant in the countryside that
specializes in chicken dishes. The story of Charles takes place in
the front yard of this small restaurant, where conflicts arise between
human beings and animals, and among human beings whose desires
are different from one another. The story is told from the perspective
of a rooster and a dog that have been observing human beings for a
while, and the yard is transformed into a place of life or death in one
instant or into a shady place filled with secrets and regrets that the
people want to hide. The writer draws readers into the very midst of
the conflicts that are taking place in the front yard with tension-filled
sentences, and he enables readers to concentrate on the narrative
while sympathizing with the different characters.
Charles the rooster possesses the ability to reason that equals that
of a human’s, while Mary the dog has become tamed by her human
owner and has lost her canine instincts. Barbed wire keeps Charles
and Mary separated, and they are always at odds with each other. By
studying and observing the restaurant owner, Charles has been able
to survive, but only by repressing his own instincts as a rooster and
learning to think like a man.
Charles observes different people at the restaurant: the restaurant
owner, the owner’s teenage daughter who calls her father “sir”, a
shallow and greedy job placement agent who drops by the restaurant,
and a woman from China who works at the restaurant. They all have
secrets as their paths cross and bring changes to one another’s
lives. Told from the rooster’s perspective, Charles discloses and
criticizes the hypocrisy of people. Through the eyes of a rooster
and a dog, which are considered nothing but weak and insignificant
living things, the true nature of people is disclosed as vile, dirty, and
dangerous. With a forceful style and narrative, the writer shows that
human beings have been reduced to such a state that they have no
sense of shame or dignity.
★ 2019 Selected for the Book Sharing Program by Arts Council Korea