Abstract

The popularity of melodrama indicates that melodrama is composed in a historical context. This is the reason why it is necessary to analyze the imagination of melodrama within a sociocultural context rather than asking the essentialistic question of “What is melodrama?". <Descendants of The Sun> (2016) and <Mr. Sunshine> (2018) caused sensations while holding unchallenged top positions in terms of viewing rate and popularity. These dramas indicate the popular imagination and desire of Korean society in the 2010s during a period of upheaval. This paper analyzed imagination in melodrama with a focus on nation and emotions of individuals in <Descendants of The Sun> and <Mr. Sunshine>. In preexisting dramas, conflicts are often limited to individuals and families; on the contrary, in <Descendants of The Sun> and <Mr. Sunshine>, a nation appears as a motif that forms conflicts between individuals. In these intense situations of conflict, people make rational judgments at first; however, they soon dispose of such judgments and reveal value-oriented attitudes through emotions, which drive actions. Both dramas form poésie mainly through poetic rhyming and the mise-en-scène of objects. The dramas also amplify emotions. The main emotions of these dramas are sympathy and sadness. Such emotions are not consumed in itself; instead, they show moral aims through performativity. Consequently, sympathy becomes solidarity, and sadness becomes mourning. Unlike preexisting melodramas whose endings were simply pursuits of love and happiness within the realm of individuals, <Descendants of The Sun> and <Mr. Sunshine> demonstrate a moral imagination that simultaneously reminds us of the individual and community through solidarity and mourning.