In this paper, Lee Hyo-seok's 「dosiwa yulyeong」 and Gogol's 'The Overcoat' are considered in connection with Michel Foucault's concept of ‘heterotopia’ in the urban discourse. Based on the urban space shown in the works of Gogol and Lee Hyo-seok, we are also examining how the motif of 'the alienated space of people who cannot adapt' is synchronized in the work and what similarities it has.
‘Gyeongseong’ in 「dosiwa yulyeong」, where people enjoying modernity represented by Jangan Street, the narrator, the beggar’s hat, and the ghost of a fairy tale are mixed, is a heterotopia with utopia and dystopia. And the urban space of 'The Overcoat' is a heterotopia of 'isolation' and 'Interstitial Spaces'. The heterotopia space shown in the works of the two artists becomes a space for rebuttal and objection to all other spaces in the city created by the mainstream order that composes the city. Through this space, we can look into the secretly inherent face of the 'modern city' and the isolated and oppressed daily life of the city dwellers in that space.
Through 「dosiwa yulyeong」, Lee Hyo-seok artistically embodies the alienated emotions of “insignificant people” living in “Gyeongseong” in the early 20th century. At the same time, through the unfortunate episodes of a city worker 'the talker' and the 'beggar son and mother', it also depicts the alienation and sorrow of others in modernity who lived in Gyeongseong at that time. In addition, Hyo-seok Lee directs a scene in which the 'beggar son and mother', who has been reduced to a tragic poverty line in the tomb of ‘Gyeongseong’ in 「dosiwa yulyeong」, turns into a ghost. This shows the negative ecology of a hybrid city with the contrast of modernity in the colonial city of ‘Gyeongseong’. In other words, the illusion of abundance provided by splendid modernity on Jangan Street intersects with the reality of extreme poverty and suffering caused by non-civilization and cultural decline in Jongmyo and Dongmyo. In doing so, the duality of modernity is revealed. A similarity to Gogol’s ‘The Overcoat’ and ‘Nevsky Street’ is found here. Hyo-seok Lee and Go-gol, through their works, show the two-sided and dual characteristics of modernity of a modern city. At the same time, the two authors inform us that the modern cities of ‘Gyeongseong’ and ‘Petersburg’ are not only glamorous, fantasy-like cities dominated by the desire for the manifestation of modernity, but also a modern city where the deconstruction of human dignity that gives birth to ‘alienation’ and ‘misfit’ is proceeding.