In the opening episodes of Sweet Home , the residents of Green Home are defined by isolation. They live in adjacent units but inhabit separate emotional worlds: the reclusive Cha Hyun-soo, the guilt-ridden firefighter Seo Yi-kyung, the former gangster Jung Jae-heon, and the traumatized guitarist Lee Eun-yoo. The monster apocalypse violently collapses these boundaries. This paper explores how forced proximity in crisis transforms alienated individuals into a cohesive unit, with romantic tensions emerging not from conventional attraction but from shared trauma, mutual redemption, and the desperate need to prove one’s soul remains human.
Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan’s Sweet Home transcends the typical monster-apocalypse narrative by focusing intensely on the psychosocial dynamics of a confined group of survivors. This paper argues that the Green Home residents do not merely form a survival coalition; they construct a surrogate family where romantic storylines function as critical mechanisms for character rehabilitation and thematic reinforcement. By examining the primary relationships (Hyun-soo & Jae-heon, Eun-yoo & Hyun-soo) and secondary bonds (Dusik & Ji-soo, Yuri & Jae-heon’s memory), this analysis reveals how intimacy—both platonic and romantic—serves as the antidote to the “monsterization” of desire. Ultimately, Sweet Home posits that romantic love is not a distraction from survival but the very proof of retained humanity. Sweet Home - My Sexy Roommates -v1.02- -CODEPINK-
The central conceit of Sweet Home is that desire—specifically, unmanageable or selfish desire—triggers monsterization. However, the series complicates this: romantic love is a desire for another , which inherently challenges pure self-interest. We apply attachment theory (Bowlby) and Levinasian ethics (the face of the Other as the call to responsibility) to argue that romantic bonds in the narrative are the only desires that resist the monster’s curse. While the cursed desire to “become free” or “revenge” isolates, the desire to protect, hold, or be seen by another integrates. In the opening episodes of Sweet Home ,