신경숙 소설의 공간 연구

Abstract

This paper was written for the purpose of studying on space of Sin, Kyeng Sook's novesl which express the inside of human being in the 1990s. If we read her work as it is, we have to find the hidden meaning like a figure of speech, a symbol, or a metaphor out in the work instead of just reading and concentrate on her inside and stream of consciousness. Especially, the comprehension about the space of her novel was necessary for understanding all of her works. Therefore emphasis is placed on the symbolism and the meaning that the space of Sin, Kyeng Sook's novel has in this paper. It is summarized as follows. There are 'a safe space' and 'a hostile space' in the third chapter. The places like the 'home, tomb, well and nest' represent 'a safe place'. A 'home' was described as the place of family myth. A 'home' is well shown in a lot of her works; those are The People Who Eat Potato, The Gathering Light, When I Left Home a Long Time Ago, Whenever to Breathe Deeply, A Winter Fable, Until It Became the River. When I read these works, most of all, the speakers in the novels were women who sought help from her father and brother too much. In mother's case, however, she adhered to be the woman who men created, and she believed that the life that women did not have their own desire but also adapted their ways of lives to men's desire was beautiful. This attachment to the family made the 'home' become revived as the warm and safe space in the memory. The symbolism of the 'tomb and well' which are the symbols of the womb recurrence instinct could be found in Hey Bird, Far Away on the Boundless Way. She believed that the 'tomb and well' were the places which were crossing the life and the death. And the 'nest' which arouse the fancy of safety could be found in The Space Where the Organ Was, Her Image, When I Left Home a Long Time Ago. On one hand, in The Space Where the Organ Was, the nest of magpie was an opportunity which the speaker in novel could be able to reflect as the acting stuff of the married couple. On the other hand, in Her Image, the nest of magpie was the existence which arouse homesickness. And in When I Left Home a Long Time Ago, the nest of swan was used as the symbol of the homing instinct. There are the spaces of alienation and violence like the 'city, Seoul, separate room', and the space of breaking relationship like 'vacant house' as 'a hostile place'. First of all, a writer in the novels recognized that the 'city, Seoul, separate room' included the horror of routine in The Separate Room, The Mountain Which Get Futher, The Woman Who Plays Badminton, Whenever to Breathe Deeply. Especially, she described 'Seoul' as not only the space of alienation which built a wall against the weak in both the relational side and the economical side, but also the terrible space in which a woman left alone in front of the violence. In several works of hers, however, speaker in novel did not accept the rootless life as a true nature, but tried to seek his or her root. The 'vacant house' could be found in A Disappearance, The Night Way, The Separate Room, A Chair on the Beach, Far Away on the Boundless Way, The People Who Eat Potato, When I Left Home a Long Time Ago, The Vacant House. And to conclude, the 'vacant house' could be the extinction of relationship. It was shown that the speaker in novel accepted the life in the vacant house as the condition of life. There are the aspect of change and a special feature about the space of Sin, Kyeng Sook's novel in the fourth chapter. 'The process about the loss of a safe space' was well shown in A Winter Fable, Until It Became the River, The Night Way, The Menarche, When I Left Home a Long Time Ago, The Hill in That Side, Far Away on the Boundless Way. The speaker in novel was a dog in The Hill in That Side, but in the rest of those novels, the speaker was a woman. By the way, there was also a woman, 'Nam Seon', who left the home in The Hill in That Side though she was not a speaker in novel. These women all left their own home and went to the city or somewhere else, at this point, the experience of leaving home was not the simple action to leaving hometown, but the action and the essential experience which separated from her baby or herself were in contact. The next part was 'the process for overcoming the dichotomous space'. In A Sound of a Bell, the reconciliation was shown by the medium of 'the nest'. Taking 'the nest', the medium, Sin, Kyeng Sook newly recovered the conjugal relations which had been breaking through the pains, that are, the bitter competition and the abortion in A Sound of a Bell. Then, it seemed like that she bowed to critics' demand which was "Speak to the stranger outside and drive to the coexistence newly." And in Look in the well, the reconciliation was shown by the medium of 'the well'. Using the well space, she tried to find the reconciliation with the death which is the deepest place in our mind. Lastly, Sin, Kyeng Sook gave the space to cure the wound through leaving Seoul for a short while. Right this space was Buseok Temple. She presented the combination between altruistic existences as a model of recovering human relations instead of presenting the inhuman combination by the medium of the dry rationalism. Based on these considerations, I looked into the meanings about the space of Sin, Kyeng Sook's novel. Those are the spaces which confirms the love of family, symbols of the womb recurrence instinct, the things to arouse the fancy of safety or what it show the desolation of life.