Goethe’s Faust in the South Korean Manhwa The Tarot Café: Sang-Sun Park’s Critical Project

Abstract

In the South Korean graphic novel series by Sang-Sun Park, The Tarot Café (2007), pop culture merges with canonical German literature. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust blends with vernacular social forms to create a South Korean version of the German Faust legend. Because of South Korean popular culture’s global popularity and circulation, cultural flows enable the mixing of various particular cultural spheres, which then causes those particular cultural elements to become less culturally anchored. Although it appears to be a culturally neutral pictorial narrative, Park’s graphic novel deconstructs conventional gender roles of female and male in South Korean society in the 2000s. Gagum illuminates this nuanced representation of a female Faust and offers insights into Korean-based recontextualizations and interpretations of Faust today.