This paper develops an existential-analytic approach to postcolonial melancholia found in 1950s—1960s Korean literature, engaging with Walter Benjamin’s organized pessimism and Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilistic affirmation of vitality. Focusing on three literary works—Obaltan by Beom-seon Lee, The Square by Choe Inhun, and A Respite by Oh Sangwon—shaped by the memory of Japanese occupation (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953), this paper contends that postcolonial melancholia, along with its theologico-political and ontological-ethical valence, becomes more explicit when interpreted through the lens that integrates organized pessimism and nihilistic affirmation of vitality. Postcolonial melancholia reveals an ontological state of postcolonial beings bound to inescapable encounters with nothingness in the post-liberation, postcolonial world. Employing Sigmund Freud’s distinction between mourning and melancholia, I theorize postcolonial melancholia as an existential attunement—manifested as grief—toward a world wherein the hope for redemption (from socio-political oppression, alienation, or death) is grieved over as a loss. I argue that this hope is merely a directed consciousness toward the unknown, which cannot be known, because it is nothing (nihil). The redemption of postcolonial future—desired, expected, and hoped for—is this nothing, for there is no redemption for those who, after the violence of colonialism, can no longer be. In the postcolonial present found in the abovementioned three literary works, only the intentionality (in the phenomenological sense) toward this nothing remains, appearing as grief over nothing—that is, as melancholia. Postcolonial melancholia found in post-Korean War literature is an encounter with nothingness also in the sense that it makes postcolonial subjectivity realize that liberation or negative liberty (freedom from exteriority), as experienced in the postcolonial present, has no moral grounding in itself. Rather, it is parasitic on constant reconstruction/deconstruction, re-narrativization/denarrativization, and reconceptualization/unknowing of the colonial past and its psychical imprints. In addition to redemption being nothing, the lack of moral grounding experienced in postcolonial melancholia resonates with Nietzsche’s nihilism, on the one hand, and Benjamin’s organized pessimism, on the other. Both Nietzsche and Benjamin’s perspectives are premised on the shared understanding that there is no predetermined meaning or value in life, thus, no conceptual grounding for morality. Their shared nihilistic view of life and morality diverges in that Benjamin develops his theologico-political thought within pessimism by employing nihilism against nihilism, whereas Nietzsche, despite the absence of meaning, affirms vitality through his notion of the “will to power.” This paper argues that postcolonial melancholia, as depicted in Obaltan, The Square, and A Respite, along with its ethical significance for postcolonial existence, becomes clearer when both accounts of nihilism and nothingness are considered. It further contends that Benjamin and Nietzsche illuminate the ontological-ethical vision of postcolonial melancholia and its theologico-political significance—one that post-liberation theologies must seek in the courage to be and to endure.
This paper develops an existential-analytic approach to postcolonial melancholia found in 1950s—1960s Korean literature, engaging with Walter Benjamin’s organized pessimism and Friedrich Nietzsche’s nihilistic affirmation of vitality. Focusing on Obaltan (Beom-seon Lee), The Square (Choe Inhun), and A Respite (Oh Sangwon)—works shaped by the memory of Japanese occupation (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953)—this study contends that postcolonial melancholia, with its theologico-political and ontological-ethical valence, is clarified when interpreted through a framework integrating organized pessimism and nihilistic affirmation of vitality. Drawing on Freud’s distinction between mourning and melancholia, I theorize postcolonial melancholia as an existential attunement—manifested as grief—toward a world wherein the hope for redemption is grieved over as a loss. This melancholia confronts nothingness, revealing the absence of moral grounding in postcolonial liberation. Reading 1950s—1960s Korean literature through Nietzsche’s nihilism and Benjamin’s pessimism illustrates this condition, necessitating that theologies of postcolonial existence center their discourse on the courage to be and to endure when romanticized notions of redemption appear nebulous and meaningless, and thus undesirable.