Hayden White philosophy of history monograph (4 emplotments)

4 Emplotments

In this monograph, I would talk about 4 emplotments of Hayden White. Well I should say that I would write 1 story in 4 different emplotments to show the difference of the philosophy of White about narration process. Before I begin, I would like to state these four types of emplotments which are romance, tragedy, comedy and satire.

Now I would like to begin with a brief explanation of event that I will place in four different types of emplotment. This event is the assassination of the prime minister of Japan on 1909 during the Japanese occupation of Korea, by a Korean patriot named An Jung Geun.

An’s assassination succeeds yet he was tried and was ordered to be executed by the Japanese government.

Romance

On 1909 to the way of Manchuria where Japanese were trying to expand their territory west, the prime minister of Japan, Ito Hirobumi got off the train to greet the people in Manchuria. Manchuria wasn’t obviously a part of Korea but nowadays China.

An Jung Geun who was a faithful believer of Catholicism knew and had a strong belief that God has placed the life of the prime minister of Japan in his hands.

An and his fellow patriots before the assassination plan took place, had a conference where they had promised to make Korea an independent nation. By cutting their fingers, they signed the paper of agreement with their blood, to fight for the independence.

When Prime Minister Ito got out of the train, the crowd was cheering and some waving Japanese flags. While this was happening, An got his gun from his jacket and aimed straight for he had only one shot to blow before the Japanese soldiers captured him.

He finally took the blow and the prime minister fell on ground. An was captured and while he was, he got the Korean national flag that he so tightly kept in his bosoms and waved it in front of the crowd shouting the independence of Korea.

An was sentenced to death for killing the prime minister of Japan but this brought a big sign of possibility and optimistic view to Korean patriots who wasn’t succeeding. An’s death was very miserable. We still don’t know where his body is buried or if it is actually buried. But the Korean nation recognized him as one of the most important patriot who had risked his life for his country. Even though it seems like he died a shameful death, it wasn’t shameful at all but in fact it should be very honorable and praiseful death for the Koreans.

Tragedy

An succeeded to assassinate the prime minister but was that truly the main solution for the problem? Before we ask ourselves about what the solution was, I believe that we should first look at the problem itself. The problem was the nation of Korea under the Japanese occupation. Korean patriots wanted independence and more specifically freedom.

Although the assassination brought some optimistic viewpoint toward Korean patriots who risked their lives for the independence, saying that the act of patriotism can actually succeed. But in the other hand, the hero who is in this case An Jung Guen suffers a tragic death without achieving his main goal of independence.

Comedy

For the emplotment of comedy, I decided to go broader in order for the readers to understand why this event can be a comedy. Koreans were under the imperialism of Japanese for many years. The assassination of the prime minister of Japan had a great impact stirring up nationalism in Korea but in the other hand Korea wasn’t an independent nation. And the independence itself came 35 years after the assassination of prime minister of Japan had occurred. There were struggles between the nation of Korea and Japan but for 35 years it was just like old times.

Satire

The death of one of the greatest Korean patriot is already something that is very tragic. Japanese military forces succeeded to capture him and the Japanese trial court sentenced him to death. The evil won and even though the prime minister of Japan was shot and assassinated, the basic elements didn’t change and Japan still had the power over Korea for 35 years.


An Jung geun. Retrieved on October 10, 2008
From http://aboutjapan.japansociety.org/content.cfm/hero

White, H. (1973). Metahistory: The historical imagination in nineteenth-century Europe.
Baltimore: John Hopkins University.
Wikipedia [Website]. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org.