Digital Humanities Tools

English in the Modern World

Throughout my entire middle and high school English experience, I was mainly taught to analyze literature in a traditional manner. Although sometimes assignments were interesting (including one inspired by Pride & Prejudice & Zombies), they all were fairly similar: a standard paper or presentation detailing my analysis of a book. While these can be good tools for analyzing and understanding a piece of literature, after a while they have gotten stale and monotonous. Due to this, the new digital humanities tools have been a breath of fresh air.

As a tech-oriented person, I love experimenting with different platforms and new technology. When being shown Neatline, I immediately jumped into playing with different settings and abilities of the platform. Neatline and the other tools we've been presented allow me to analyze the books we read in different ways that a paper just can't. They've unlocked new areas of analysis, such as looking at the geographical aspect of a story or creating a timeline to visually express how the story progresses. In the modern world, technology provides us so many opportunities to learn and explore that previous generations haven't had. With the digital humanities tools, we can utilize some of those opportunities to increase the depth of our analysis and understanding.

Pachinko: Unfair Tragedy

Untimely Death

Throughout Pachinko, several characters are killed as young adults. Hoonie, Isak, Noa, Yumi, and Hana all die before age 40, and all of very different causes. Hoonie's and Yumi's deaths were bad luck, whereas Hana's could be seen as a consequence of her "lifestyle." Isak's death was predictable and almost later than expected, but he was much younger than he should have been. Noa's was unique in that it was not due to external causes but the internal shame and self-loathing that he experienced.

Although all of these characters died of various causes, all of them were too young to have died. For some deaths, some may argue that they "deserved it" (Hana for her life choices and Noa for his "dirty blood"). Others would be deemed too good to have died so young (Hoonie being such a good man, Yumi protecting her son, and Isak dedicating his life to God and goodness). However, it remains that regardless of their choices, all of these characters died too young.

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The point that Lee makes with these deaths is that tragedy is blind to a person's nature. A person could be good, bad, or neutral, but tragedy will strike them regardless. A point that was brought up in the discussion was Isak's untimely death. The Biblical figure Isaac lived an unnaturally long life due to his faith and trust in God, resulting in his being rewarded. Isak was just as good and faithful, yet he died after years of suffering and a lifetime of sickliness. On the other hand, Hansu was an overall bad person who did awful things, yet he lived into old age and outlived his own son. Lee uses these two contrasting characters, along with all the other characters who died young, to show how truly unjust life can be.

Akiko: "Othering" and Martyrship

Perpetual Foreigner

Throughout his life, Noa is seen as "other." As a child, he was the kid without friends. At college, he was weirdly aloof. Outside of his family, he had no relationships, and even there he was the odd one out as the child of Hansu. Akiko was the first person to create a relationship with him, and to Noa was the first person to see him as a person and not just the weird kid. However, in this moment he realizes that this was never the case. His realization, combined with finding out that Isak was not his father, forces him to confront the idea that he's always been an outsider. This relates to how Koreans as a whole were treated in Japan. Despite being born in Japan and being almost indiscernable from a Japanese man, his ancestry immediately alienates him from the rest of the population, branding him as "other."

Martyrship

This also contributes to the idea of martyrship. Noa realizes that Akiko was dating him in order to show how good she is: nobody wanted anything to do with the weird Korean, but she was willing to be with him because she can look past his race. This martyrship convinces her that she is good, despite how she fetishizes and treats him as a Korean. This also relates to Japanese imperialism in that Japan (and its citizens, as we are shown) is convinced that it is on the right side. For example, Yoseb's former boss. Despite paying Yoseb less than a Japanese worker and the strict conditions in which Yoseb was forced to work, the boss was convinced that he was doing a good thing, because he was willing to stoop down and hire Koreans. Despite treating Koreans as lesser people, Japan was sure that it was being generous by even acknowledging them at all.