Cursed Bunny discussion

Cursed Bunny

Let's hear your thoughts regarding this short story - Scars.

what does Bora Chung want to tell us through this story and what do you think the story implies.

I'm afraid, this is the only story of the collection I'm struggling to find out what the hell she's trying to say. First, I thought that the theme is 'real monsters aren't like the one inside the cave, but the ones roaming the world wearing the faces of men'... but then, that ending!!! It turned everything on its head. Did the young man do something wrong by slaying the monster and starting a chain reaction of misfortune affecting all the villages? Were the people offering sacrifices to the monster right?

Of course, we'll always assign labels of 'right/wrong' to the characters based on our understanding of our world, that there are no monsters or magic or whatever. But following the rules of the world of Scars, I think that the people were the good ones in the sense of 'doing one horrible act for the greater good'.
Anyway, I'm not convinced by my own words because... what's the point?! How can readers relate to a fictional world? I'm sure that there must be a meaning behind it, but I'm always dozens of steps behind.

i have absolutely no idea what this story is "about." i hate when i know a story is supposed to be about more than the literal plot but i'm not smart enough to understand it. no one likes to feel stupid which is probably why i don't read more "literature." therefore, i have decided that i'm actually smart & it is the writer's fault for not being clearer.

I'm on my second reread of this collection right now, and the first time around I knew I loved Scars, however nebulous the moral or lesson central to it might have seemed to me at the time. Now, though, the reason why I love it seems a little clearer. In my high school English class, much like many other English classes, we had to read and analyze Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, and I remember being so mindblown by that one short story, because of the philosophical question it poses: if one person had to undergo unimaginable suffering for the happiness and survival of others, would it all be worth it? That's the thing about Scars—it gives us readers a look into what the designated scapegoat of these kinds of stories live through. We read through so much of the youth's suffering, and just when he finds something and someone he wants to live for and kill his tormentor for, he loses it. Not only that, but the entire village—the one kept relatively safe from the monster's harm by the youth's suffering—shuns him the whole time. They're disgusted by him, terrified of him, all the while either unknowing of or ignorant towards this great sacrifice he's made all his life for their benefit. By the end of it, we know that even after everything, the villagers are still scared of him. No one ever shows him any sort of kindness in the story—not the bald man who takes him in but inevitably ends up exploiting him to near-death, and not the blind woman whose place he takes as a sacrifice who only warms up to him for like, a day, or even less than a day. Sometimes a story doesn't need a clear lesson or cookie-cutter moral and message by the end of it. Sometimes it's more than enough for a story to serve as a cautionary tale of sorts, one to remind us of the cyclical suffering, injustice and exploitation of power imbalances that's rampant in the world we live in today.

I think part of it is that trauma from childhood (which I think comes out in lots of the stories especially reunion) stays and that trauma is not an easy defeat. In real life you don’t have one magic thereby session or just cut off those who hurt you and magically recover, like the boy killing the beast doesn’t end his suffering but he chooses to keep walking and trying again.

He received little kindness or understanding (especially as no one else can relate to his experiences) but still at the end keeps walking to find a home.
Trauma isn’t defeated like a monster in a fairytale is what I took away from Scars :3