Our Twisted Hero

Our Twisted Hero is a 1987 novel by South Korean author Yi Munyol. Set sometime between the 1950s and 1980s, it is an allegory of Korea’s dictatorship and widespread political corruption during this period, and its slow, painful, but ultimately triumphant democratization. Through its protagonist’s experiences with tyrannical people in childhood environments that are supposed to be open, free, and accepting, Munyol focuses on the ways in which creative totalitarian regimes can squelch dissent. The story suggests that religious appeal, populism, and assimilation can be just as effective instruments as violence and intimidation. First published in the quarterly magazine World Literature, the book received the Yi Sang Literary Award that same year. A South Korean classic, the novel was adapted into a 1992 film of the same name.

Our Twisted Hero is narrated by Han Byeong-tae, or Pyŏngt'ae for short. Now an adult, Byeong-tae looks back on his time in elementary school and the transitions in his family life. When his father’s business collapsed, he moved his family to a lower-class town and enrolled Byeong-tae at Y Elementary School. There, the president of his fifth-grade class, Eom Seokdae, wields tyrannical power over his peers, even their teachers. A classic bully in his eagerness to use violence, Seokdae is also extremely clever. Byeong-tae tries in vain to organize his classmates to reject Seokdae’s power. To his despair, they unanimously support their leader. This failed effort alienates Byeong-tae from everyone at school, causes his grades to suffer, and hurts his reputation. His parents fail to understand his deep pain and the tyranny he faces at school. Eventually, Byeong-tae accepts defeat and submits to Seokdae’s rule.

As soon as Seokdae realizes Byeong-tae’s concession, he exalts him as a transformed subject. He elevates him beyond his other peers, endowing him with executive powers and restoring his reputation with public declarations. He forces the other fifth graders to spend time with Byeong-tae so that he no longer feels lonely. Byeong-tae’s life seems to turn around: his grades improve, and his parents think he is finally fitting in. He remarks that at this time, he felt immense gratitude toward his dictator. The wisdom of hindsight has shown him that Seokdae never deserved gratitude, for he had ripped away his right to community and happiness only to dangle it in front of him as an incentive to do his bidding.



Luckily, when Byeong-tae graduates into sixth grade, Seokdae’s reign ends. Their new teacher senses the class’s social hierarchy and sees through Seokdae’s subtle manipulations, violence, and cheating. The teacher condemns Seokdae’s actions. Byeong-tae laments that back then, he was the only one who defended Seokdae’s innocence, since he was so attached to the power the dictator’s reign afforded him. Soon after, Seokdae vanishes without a trace; it is assumed that he went off to another school.

At the end of the novel, Byeong-tae turns to a more recent memory. While walking through a train station, he sees a man being tackled by police officers. The man’s face looks uncannily familiar; suddenly Byeong-tae realizes that it is Seokdae. The event serves as confirmation that some people are incorrigible, but also suggests, on a positive note, that people tend to survive them. Byeong-tae and his classmates’ survival into a post-dictator adulthood signify Korea’s early democratic roots: they are unsure what to make of their new worlds but eager to exercise their new freedoms.