Two literary works are referenced in this show (to my knowledge, maybe there’s more), and I thought it would be interesting to compare the show’s story to those. The works are :
The Metamorphosis by Kafka
That’s the book Moon Jo took from Jung Woo’s room (it has his name on it, Seok Yoon’s the one who notices and Moon Jo lies that Jung Woo lent it to him). Jung Hwa returns it to Jung Woo in the finale.
Huis clos (literal translation : “behind closed doors” // english title : “No Exit”) by Jean-Paul Sartre
That’s the play from which comes the quote “Hell is other people” (in French : “L’Enfer, c’est les autres”).
The Metamorphosis
Jung Woo’s journey vs The book’s plot
The plot of the book is : the main protagonist, George, wakes up one day to find that he’s turned into a “monstrous” insect. He gets progressively rejected by his family from the moment when they find out.
Of course, a proper analysis of the story reveals themes that are different from those of Strangers From Hell.
Still, I think they chose to mention that book because Jung Woo also turns into a monster and is progressively rejected by the people closest to him (his hyung and his girlfriend), who struggle to show compassion for his ordeal because they do not understand it. They turn on him, and it’s made clear that Jung Woo perceives it that way too.
Even though both Jung Woo and Moon Jo enjoy crime novel, that book, which is not a crime novel, catches Moon Jo’s attention. And he is the one who will turn Jung Woo into a monster.
Jung Woo’s journey vs The deeper meaning of the book
Now if you want to get into the actual analysis of the book : it woud be a criticism of the society the author lived in (apparently he felt that people were becoming socially, economically and morally alienated by a materialistic society and an oppressive capitalistic system).
The protagonist’s transformation represents someone going against the values and beliefs of the time. He’s turned into a “monster”, and his family starts treating him cruelly while he, on the other hand, retains his humanity. His boss (representing a cold, overly-calculating capitalistic society) berates him for not coming to work (even though he’s in that state) but thanks to his monstrous form, he’s more free than them. Although he ends up isolated, depressed then dead, the point is that the people who’re alienated aren’t the ones we would have thought of at first - his family is socially, economically and morally alienated. His life was meaningless, and he only realizes it after turning into a monster.
I wonder if Moon Jo was drawing a twisted parallel here, by identifying society’s moral system that says hey, maybe don’t torture and kill people … with the oppressive system that they need to free themselves from.
After all, he kept telling Jung Woo : “You can do whatever you want” and “You should say what you want, curse who you want and kill who you want”. Moon Jo himself lived that way (and died like the main protagonist in the book btw, although George’s death was sad, and Moon Jo’s death was well deserved).
Huis clos
1st parallel : the story takes place in an enclosed space (the studio residence), a “hell” where people hurt each other but that they cannot leave.
Indeed, Huis clos is about 3 people who die and are sent to Hell. There, an employee brings them to one of the many rooms and leaves them alone together. There is no mirror, no night and no sleep. There is a button they can press to call the employee but it’s broken.
They bicker and talk about their lives and wonder why they’re in Hell, but eventually their sins come to light. Most importantly, we realize that they were put in this room together to torture each other.
2nd parallel : Jung Woo initially thinks that the studio residence is hell, but soon realizes Hell is its inhabitants - and they can still persecute him even if he leaves the studio.
In the book, th 3 people do not torture each other physically or in any other explicit way : it’s the nature of their respective desires / flaws / greeds that lead them to hurting each other. Each one of them wants something from one of the other, that the other can’t give (specifically : attention / affection / approval). Hence the frustration, the lowering self-esteem, etc …
Now, some people have understood the quote “Hell is other people” as if the author meant that human relationships are always twisted and source of pain, but that’s not what he meant.
He explained he was talking about the specific relationship between our self-esteem / the way we perceive ourselves in general, and the way people perceive us. No matter what, as people, when we try to get to know ourselves, we always take into account what other people think of us, as well. Whatever we think of ourselves, others’ opinion contribute to forming our own, at least a little. Which is why, if our relationship to others are twisted, we are in hell. And anyone who’s too dependent on others’ opnion of them is in hell.
3rd parallel : After they’d rushed to the studio residence because Jung Woo thought the gang would hurt Ji Eun who’d gone to look for him. Jung Hwa’s junior says about Jung Woo that he “didn’t seem normal”, he was “weird”. And she says : “imagine that everyone keeps on telling you that you’re insane. Wouldn’t you actually go insane ?”
And isn’t that what happened to Jung Woo ? His neighbor insisted that deep down he wanted to be a murderer, heightening his struggle with his army-related trauma, his anger and the violence it triggers. Meanwhile his closest friends would say he “became weird”, “acts weirdly”, “says weird things” although they were all true.
At some point, after beating up his supervisor at work, Jung Woo admits in his voice over : “At that moment I didn’t know who I was anymore”. Meaning : on one hand, he couldn’t believe in a positive version of himself because his friends didn’t believe in it anymore. And on the other hand, he struggled to fight off his darker side because Moon Jo kept insisting that it was his true identity.
“Anyone who’s too dependent of other people’s opinion of them is in hell,” Sartre says. Although in Jung Woo’s case, he hardly had a choice given how isolated he was between two groups of people who were “torturing” him with their perception of him.
Anyway, this is kind of a mess but I really wanted to put this down in writing !!!
