The Red Room by Lim Chulwoo reveals the irony of rationalized violence through the characters’ internal dialogue. Lim presents the dual perspectives of both the torture victim, O Ki-sop, and the perpetrator, Ch’oe Tal-shik, to reveal Tal-shik’s hypocrisy. By giving the reader a glimpse into the characters’ mundane thoughts, they become more similar than different — both wish to escape from the mundane, complaining about either his “same damn routine” or wishing to have the “fucking world off [his] shoulders” (124, 139). Yet, as Tal-shik interrogates Ki-sop, he wonders “if other men with family responsibilities feel like” he does, then proceeds to think of Ki-sop as “a cancer on” society, not even human (176).
This dissonance is highlighted further when Tal-shik has no qualms about stripping Ki-sop of his dignity, as he views Ki-sop as beneath him, yet refuses to neglect his mother, who has lost her senses. Ki-sop is treated as less than human despite attempting to have a rational conversation with Tal-shik. However, Tal-shik also refuses to send his mother to a prayer house where “There were seven or eight people to a room” and “apart from being fed, they got nothing in the way of services” (181). At this point, his mother’s mental state has degraded to the point that she smears her excrement around his house. Though she carries herself with less dignity than Ki-sop, he still believes she deserves more respect. This demonstrates Tal-shik’s skewed thinking and separation of concerns. His family and political life are separate, and the only people he is willing to dehumanize are the Reds, revealing his deeply ingrained but irrational hatred.
Finally, when he receives Ki-sop’s forced confession, Tal-shik mocks him and negates the validity of a world with no “poor slobs”; he believes that the only way to achieve “equality and peace is through judgment and punishment” (178). However, he earlier states to his son that the “military academy” is “the only way poor slobs like me and you get ahead in the world” (176–177). Due to his intense hatred and repression, he desires superiority over his enemies, the Reds, rather than equal treatment. He is blinded by his vengeance-focused mindset. Since his family was a victim of the Reds, he internalizes and rationalizes his hatred to the point of being self-destructive, preventing him from realizing the irony and hypocrisy of his thoughts and actions — and how they mirror the very violence he claims to oppose.