김멜라 소설에 나타난 ‘삶–죽음’의 퀴어 시간성

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the queer temporality in Kim Mella’s early short story collections At Least Twice and Dream On from the perspective of relational ontology. In this context, “queer” refers to practices and relationalities that deconstruct and escape the various norms, including the heterosexual norm, which constitute mainstream “normalcy.” The paper investigates how linear (straight) time, based on classical physics and divided into past-present-future while assuming a universal human subject, intersects with the heterosexual norm to define the queer as “non-being” or “non-life.” It also explores whether the queer time generated by queer relationships escapes and undoes linear time. Kim Mella portrays figures of others who have lost their loved ones due to the heterosexual norm. These figures stand as beings on the border, unable to succumb to the sorrow of loss. The heterosexual norm normalizes and shapes the bodies and lives of these others through the mainstream temporal logic. In order to present the possibility of escaping this linear (straight) time, Kim Mella introduces a different kind of ghost, distinct from the spectral beings found in recent Korean literature. These ghosts have materiality, living through post-death time, and forming a connection between the living and the dead. The repeated failure of mourning causes the memory of these figures to be recalled repeatedly. From the perspective of relational ontology, memory is the trace of the other left with me, as well as the countless traces of others who have passed through “me.” Therefore, memory-recall actualizes the past and allows the trace of the dead to live with me. Ultimately, the living, through the traces of the dead, relate to the other within them, creating an overlap between life and death. This becomes a life that embraces the infinite potential of death, a life chosen to live with death, where the boundary between life and death is blurred. The time of life-death “in-between” is a time of potential creation and destruction, where modern time is deconstructed and intermingled. It represents an “event” that transitions from finitude to infinity, holding the potential for us to sense our entanglement with the Earth. This becomes a precursor to Kim Mella’s later move toward a posthuman ontology in her works.