Practical Criticism of Stairway to Heaven

Several themes run throughout the Korean drama ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (STH). The following is a practical criticism of the drama.

The theme of love and hate runs very clearly throughout STH. There is the relationship between the protagonists, Jingshu and Chengjun. This is followed by the coupling of Tae Hwa and Jingshu as well as Yuri and Chengjun.

In the first pair of coupling, they present the true star-crossed lovers where nothing goes well with their relationship. When they’ve overcome one disaster, another one comes knocking on their door. However, the saying that love can overcome anything and everything does not seem to apply to their case. Their love for one another is not sufficient to overcome the last disaster which knocked on their door: Jingshu’s cancer.

The second pairing is between Tae Hwa and Jingshu. They came together when Jingshu had an accident and she lost her memory. Even though one could say that Tae Hwa was indeed selfish in keeping Jingshu to himself for five years, however, he aptly redeems himself through several events: by telling the truth about Jingshu’s accident, by giving up of Jingshu so that she can marry Chengjun as well as the sacrifice of his own life so that he may give his eyes to the blind Jingshu.

The last pairing is Chengjun with Yuri. The two came together as a result of the apparent death of Jingshu. Yuri seems to love Chengjun for who he is as she seems to get insanely jealous whenever Jingshu comes onto the scene.

Between Chengjun and Jingshu, the hurts that occur between them seem to exist only on the emotional level and mental. However, between Tae Hwa and Jingshu, the hurt, for Taw Hwa at least, exists for him not only on the emotional as well as mental level, but also for the physical level. This is clearly seen in his unselfish act of killing himself so that his eyes can be given to Jingshu. This is to fulfill her wish of seeing Chengjun once again when she has gone blind.

No doubt Chengjun did think of giving one of his eyes to the blind Jingshu, in this case, the saying ‘action speaks louder than words’ seem to apply. Of course, one should not belittle all of Chengjun’s efforts in trying to ascertain the truth of Jingshu’s identity when she had amnesia. However, all of Chengjun’s efforts do not really seem to cut it when the crux of the moment takes place. Indeed, one could say that Chengjun was rather helpless when Jingshu wanted to see him when she was blind.

Other than the love for a person, there is another aspect of love: the love of the material. This theme is clearly personified in the figure of Mira. Her love for wealth led her to marry Professor Han, which in turn, led to her instigating and taking the side of her own daughter, Yuri, to marry Chengjun.

Another theme that runs very strongly in STH is the idea of blindness versus sight. When Jingshu was blind, it was a physical infirmity for her. However, this infirmity takes on an intangible aspect in the persons of Chengjun, his mother as well as Professor Han, Jingshu’s father. It was rather blatant that Mira as well as her daughter, Yuri had something bad up their sleeves. However, none of them the truly blind people saw through them. It is a classic case of having eyes, and yet, they do not see. Sometimes, even the blind see more than them.

End of the pract crit. Aiya, I anyhow write one lah. I don’t think it’s very well done, but whatever. It’s been about seven years since I last wrote a pract crit. Yup, and that was for my ‘A’ level exams.

Aiya, stil got a lot of themes to explore lah:

- in death, there’s life

- heaven, earth and hell

- angel vs. the devil

- now vs. eternity

- love vs. hate

- true love vs. fake love

- sacrifice

- light vs. darkness

- memory loss vs. remembering

- lies vs. truth

- redemption and forgiveness

- envy and jealousy

- the haves vs. the have-nots

- better to love and lost than not to love at all

Generally speaking, I don’t like Literature for the simple reason that we tend to dig and dig and dig and dig and try to look for some meaning. And seriously, in the case of STH, I SERIOUSLY doubt the script writer(s) meant to elucidate all the abovementioned themes. I reckon they are more concerned with the ratings and the amount of tears flowing and what not. This is one of the reasons for me not studying Literature in the University level.