I Want to Be Ready

Yun Tong-ju’s later poems often deal with visions of death and doom. Though troubled by the realization that life could end in “Fearful Times,” he fearlessly explores the concept of death in the 또다른고향. In this poem of separation and ascension written a mere two years before his untimely death, we see the stir in the young Yun Hae-hwan that produced poems with the depth of a more mature voice and the transition into Yun Tong-ju the adult. Written in the Autumn of 1941, 또다른고향 is a rather chilling exploration of death, which calls to mind the unsettling images of the division of the self and the confusion of the soul as it comes to terms with its upcoming passage.

백골, though literally translatable to bleached bone or a skeleton it contains a note of gratefulness that suggests a life well lived, a satisfaction with the body’s effort. The choice of a skeleton 백골 rather than a corpse 시체 extends his poetic license while allowing him to develop the poem’s depth and riddle while at the same time expanding the gratefulness for the life that was. In translating the concept of 백골, the whiteness of the bones as it relates to purity and 윤동주’s other images of the separation in “White Shadows.”

If we look carefully at the idea of the room 한방 and the hometown, it appears that there may be some relationship to the hillside of the Korean traditional grave, tomb or resting place 무덤. Therefore, the 고향 of the first stanza I translate to “my native soil” to provide a stronger bond to the land and the interment of the body. The “dark room leads to an open cosmos // And something like a voice blows in as if from Heaven” develops the depth of the connection between the two worlds.

In the third stanza, we see the development of the division of the self. “Is it me that weeps // Or my bones // Or my soul” In his reaction to the separation of body and soul, he feels he cannot choose and 내가 represents the essence of his self-image as the united soul and spirit. The dog of the fourth and fifth stanzas then barks, not at the 백골 but at the spirit or the ghost of the dead. An expression clarifies why the dog so vehemently barks through the night: 개눈은귀신보인다. The nature of the dog who guards the hometown or land as a beast of great faith 지조높은개 though severally related as: of (high) principle, purpose, constancy, and integrity; having a firm purpose; or to be faithful [devoted] to one's principles; an older interpretation is that of the tax on land which lends it a sense of a bond with the land of the 고향- or possibly the land surrounding the 무덤. The dog then is devoted to the land and will then expel the unwanted spirit.

Though not truly prophetic in nature, it seems that in the tension of the times with the war at hand that Yun began to feel the threat of the future in the Japanese arm of power.

Away, away Like a man pursued, let’s away The bones unaware To yet another beautiful home

His destination is another hometown, which alludes to the ascent to Heaven. In the end, a poem that looked on the surface to be simplistic and possibly even preachy revealed a hidden depth and a possible path to future understanding on a more political level. But is he really preaching or are we only seeing what we want to see? Maybe we need more of the dog’s senses to detect the truth…