「설국(雪国)」의 주제도출에 관한 고찰 ー 묘사각도의 분석을 중심으로 ー

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between the theme and the analysis of character and nature description in Kawabata's Snow Country. The content of work i.e. the information, which readers can deduce from the work, is called the theme of the work. This information deduced from the work may be diverse according to the levels of readers. Nevertheless this diversity could be valid if it contains the objectivity and university. So the most objective and universal way of the deduction of them in Snow Country is to examine the process of description which the author, Kawabata invented in Snow Country. The process of description in Snow Country mainly depends on both character and nature description, because Kawabata's description is based on his own view on human and nature. He invents a viewpoint‒character, Shimanura, who is very inactive because the author came to the conclusion that everything in the world is an 'empty attempt'. The author lets Shimamura visit a snow country three times; early summer, early autumn and winter season. Shimamura experience human and nature in the snow country. At the first early summer Shimamura met a pure woman, Komako, who had a crimson and elastic cheek and fair skin. She was a incarnation of vitality itself. But Shimamura found that her purity and vitality withered as seasons changed every year. In the end he lapsed into the idea of 'empty attempt' because of her withered images. By the careful description of Shimamura's changes of idea about Komako, the author try to give readers an important message that we experience many changes for human and nature and these changes finally arrive at the idea of death. In other worlds the author, Kawabata concluded in his representative work Snow Country that human is a nihilistic being.