시니피앙의 미래: 『구운몽』에 관한 정신분석학적 테제

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze Guunmong through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Many critics have interpreted the novel through psychoanalytic theory, yet none of the studies have given particular attention to the function and logic of the Signifier. In this paper, I will examine the interplay between the subject and the Signifier, the motif which is manifest through the characterization of Sung-jin/Yang So-yu. In doing so, I will show how Sung-jin/Yang So-yu embody "the split subject" in the Lacanian sense throughout the narrative structure. In his dream, Sung-jin lives the life of Yang So-yu who ends up having an imaginary relationship with the object of fantasy. After waking up from his dream, Sung-jin reaches enlightenment and succeeds the position of authority in a temple. By challenging linear and dialectical readings of this narrative, I will propose an alternative interpretation of how Sung-jin traverses his fantasy and reaches the end of desire, which is represented as the process of achieving "enlightenment." For instance, Sung-jin's encounter with eight fairies in reality is repeated as his relationship with eight wives in his dream, and later as the meeting with eight ascetics again. This repetition proves that Sung-jin, as the split subject, pursues his desire till the end without compromising it under the gaze of the Other. This uncompromising attitude of the subject opens up the path to the drive beyond fantasy and beyond the Law of desire at the end of the novel. In other words, through the repetition, Sung-jin experiences "the end of desire," the state where the symbolic fantasy disappears. I will conclude that the last repetition in Guunmong gestures towards the future of the Signifier in which the drive leads the subject to move beyond fantasy.