THE NARRATIVE OF SURVIVAL: FOOD AND EATING AS MOTIFS IN PARASITE BY BONG JOON-HO

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The 2019 Oscar-winning movie, Parasite, contains numerous references to food and eating. It perfectly illustrates the cultural vigor and potency of an Asian movie industry capable of commanding global attention in the same vein that its food culture has done so far. I am interested in studying this movie from the standpoint of the struggle for existence which is embodied in its title. Any form of struggle as such involves subsistence and nourishment. In this paper I wish to look at this matter starting from investigating the implications that the title of the movie has. Then I will proceed to explore the significance of food and eating as an idea that dominates the movie creating a network of signification that underlies its storyline. By doing so, I will try to review the implicit and explicit ways through which eating and food feature in the narrative structure of the movie making them recurrent motifs.