2025 Sejong Writing Competition
Winning Entries :: Essays :: Adult third place (tie)
Title: The Cycle of Red-Eyed Exhaustion: Navigating Isolation of Displaced Korean Laborers in Pyun Hye-Young’s “O. Cuniculi”
Routine, conformity, isolation. Labor burdens humanity by dictating the worth placed on one’s existence. This isolation turns Pyun Hye-young’s anonymous narrator in “O. Cuniculi” into a machine of repetition. Noting red-eyed exhaustion from his job during this six-month period of work in a foreign location, cursory and routine chores plague his mind. The narrator acts as a “bridge between two cities” and struggles with the completion of his work with no connection or motivation to provide passion and control. The prioritization of care from the unnamed man for the rabbit in the story piques the interest of those concerned with the mental state of the dislocated and isolated, a priority which links the writings of authors such as Pyun or Han Kang. Faced with feelings of cultural detachment, the second-generation Korean living abroad attempts the Korean identity that separates him from the majority surrounding him. Their inescapable Koreanness places them as the minority to the majority that one either wishes to assimilate into or stand out from; however, their detachment from the experiences of the culture that they belong to not being directly experienced by them or their denial from the majority populace makes this existence difficult. The unnamed protagonist feels the sense of disinvestment that surrounds him--no more than he has internalized his dislocation and foreignness, though. Pyun’s “O. Cuniculi” provides an allegorical, socially critical recording of the experience of the confined and conformed Korean who feels a loyalty to a culture from which he is detached by tracking the mental warfare to submit to the oppression faced.
The thought processes and mental state of the protagonist are mirrored by the care with which he treats the rabbit after coming across it. The allegorical relationship between his own deteriorating mental state and the well-being of the rabbit indicate the state of mind under which the caretaker operates after their stories interlock at the story’s start. The unnamed man happens upon the rabbit, gazing into the eyes which captivated him, finding “relief at the thought that he was not the only one in this world with eyes red from exhaustion washed over him” after being stranded for so long in the park. Before we are introduced to the man, we are granted the insight that he sees himself in this dirty, exhausted rabbit that has been abandoned, relating to the disconnect. The discovery of this abandoned rabbit sparks empathy, resulting in a care routine. Much like the repetitive nature of his own role in the workforce, the care he treats the rabbit with which starts with sympathy shifts into annoyance. His repetitive, emotionless job became just as routine as the way he provides for the rabbit, a mirror of his own self-care and prioritization, addressing the feeling that “Whenever he worked on a report, he felt like a student staying after class in the teacher’s office to write a letter reflecting on what he’d done wrong. Doing the same work everyday, looking up the same information, and writing the same reports felt like filling page after page with fake apologies.” His diligence in work equally turns into annoyance. His identity reaches no further than fulfillment of the role of writing these reports, and no praise awaits him for his steadfastness. Attempting diligence about something that feels empty just like “fake apologies” is reminiscent of the feelings of a lost identity when a Korean person tries to resonate with the culture they may feel departed from when they’re dislocated and placed in the minority. The rabbit’s abandonment and the man’s immediate connection to it indicates that he must share in that feeling of dislocation and non-belonging.
During the mentally taxing struggle of navigating feeling isolated and detached, the unnamed protagonist grasps at straws looking for something to control. His care for the rabbit, which turns into a toxic, obsessive relationship, is a controllable aspect in his otherwise outwardly-dictated life. He begins to feel removed from even that form of care, noting that “All he had to do was feed it--no taking it out of its cage, letting it romp around, grooming its fur, cleaning its cage, or petting it--but he still got annoyed.” The isolation he faces overwhelms him in every aspect of his life. Lacking the privileges of being treated with the same humanity extended to members of the majority where he resides, the unnamed man loses control over the way he is received in the community and in the workforce. Try as he might for perfection in his work life, he will never be able to do away with the lack of external disinvestment, nor his internalized feelings of non-belonging in this foreign space. His desire to see some sort of recognition through the lack of control points him toward a controllable behavior, which leads to obsessive micromanagement. He searches for meaning and worth in productivity until he begins to resent caring for the abandoned creature that originally caught his eye because of its similarities to his own feelings of non-belonging. Until the narrator can resolve his lack of identity as a displaced Korean, he is incapacitated from contributing to society. He sees his own abandonment in the rabbit, and he tries to at least control this small marker of himself. As Pyun suggests in her social critique, the man is so lost in the navigation of his inability to be seen as either someone who belongs or as someone who can embrace his native Korean culture, and his downfall shows itself through the lack of control he has in attempting to micromanage the rabbit’s care. Not even the security of a stable office job is enough to compensate for the displaced Korean seeking success. The internalization of the Korean labor culture in the unnamed protagonist prevents him from finding any value in enacting care upon even a creature that reminds him of himself, questioning the priorities of a culture that harbors displaced laborers that cannot combat the isolation of labor.