But the bitter fights throughout the drama also suggest a more literal interpretation of the term "castle." For the families, and the individuals, are also literally involved in a war and their homes serve as the castles where they plan for political and economic domination. The degree to which such privilege has become an accepted part of Korean society, even something to be emulated by those less fortunate, is an indication of the degree of social inequity. The hills around Seoul are peppered with exclusive housing developments that employ the term "castle" because it evokes vague images of the gracious living of the European aristocracy. The word "castle" is also pregnant with significance. The landscape is sprinkled with traces of suicide, violence, and broken personalities. Competition goes beyond any survival of the fittest to become a destructive, even psychotic, ritual of passage. The competition for admission, unvarnished psychological warfare carried out between the families, also spills over into terrifying, and sometimes life-threatening, confrontations between the mothers and fathers and also between the children. It is not breadth of education, creativity or insightfulness that makes one a likely candidate.
Increasingly, the entrance exams are designed so that only through professional drills with expensive tutors can one hope to be admitted.
These three schools are the grazing fields for established families in Korea, dating back to the Japanese colonial period, and their gates are carefully guarded. The word "sky" in "Sky Castle" is an acronym for the three top universities in Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University. Appearance has become everything and neither parents, nor children, show any interest in discovering how society works, or in confronting the injustices that surround them. The pursuit of truth has nothing to do with the process, nor does ethics. But education does not mean erudition or wisdom, but rather the accumulation of the "specs" required to advance to the top in Korean society through school connections and by asserting domination over all who fall below.Įducation is tool for achieving greater wealth and power in Korean society. The primary means of expressing the overflowing ambitions of these families is through education. Those four families also manage to tread on the shattered remains of other families that have shredded in the climb to the top. Koreans have been riveted to their television sets for the last three months watching the JTBC hit drama "Sky Castle." This tragicomedy relates the machinations of four families who live in an exclusive development that houses the restless, the reckless and the ruthless super-rich. But the pursuit of truth has nothing to do with the process, nor do ethics. Education is a tool for achieving greater wealth and power in Korean society.
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