「윌리엄 윌슨」과 『허공에 매달린 사람』에 나타난 자아의 분열/통합

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the background, process, and result of the divided self in Edgar Allen Poe’s “William Wilson” and Saul Bellow’s Dangling Man, which, respectively, results in self-annihilation or self-liberation. The divided self in the case of William Wilson was analyzed from the perspective of the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of Super Ego, Ego and Id, while the divided self in the latter case was approached from the philosophical perspective of idealism and existentialism.The cause of the divided self in “William Wilson” can be traced back to the extremely hostile relation between his Super Ego and Id, without any neutral ground for the Ego to intervene for the reconciliation of these opposing forces. But in Dangling Man, the conflict between the self and alter ego, which had begun with hostility against each other, was managed to reach the common ground by the incessant efforts of compromise and reconciliation by the both parties. Thus incommunicability and communicability between selves make a sharp difference in these two cases, resulting either in the catastrophic ending of self-destruction in the former case, or in the happy ending of opening an intercourse with the world by liberating himself from the imprisonment of the self in the latter case. These two works seem to show the mutually exclusive methods in dealing with the alter ego, which culminates in the killing of the alter ego in “William Wilson,” and in the embracing of the alter ego in Dangling Man. However different the methods may be, one fact remains true that the divided self can’t survive without the acknowledgement of the other half, for each opposing party shares the one and identical life, like a Siamese twin.