이야기판 ․ 이야기꾼 ․ 근대소설가 -이기영을 통해서 본 구술문화에서 문자문화로의 이행 一考, 1924-1933

Abstract

This study aims to inspect the meaning of the orality in Lee, Ki Young's novels. Until now there have been many researches about Lee's novels, but those studies mostly have looked into Lee's novels through the view of the Realism. Therefore, those studies couldn't understand the meaning of the orality, and regard the Lee's novel as the lack of realism. But, by the using theories of Walter Benjamin and Walter J. Ong, we can see more possibilities. Lee's novel has a narrator similar as the storyteller. Actually, Lee was a really storyteller when he was young, and the experience of storytelling has remained the trace of itself on the novel text. Lee's narrator is not just showing the story objectively. The narrator agree or disagree with the situation or the character in novel with strong voices. The narrator sometimes is delighted with the triumph of the protagonist, or sometimes his voice trembled with rage because of the story. And sometime the narrator try to make a talk to the reader. These aspects means that Lee's narrator has a character of storyteller. Actually the storyteller is involved in the tradition of the oral culture in the premodern society. In Oral society, most people couldn't read or write with the letter, so they just could talk and listen. But when they spoke or listen, they made a community and within the community they shared their emotion and wisdom. Lee's narrator has a trace of the storyteller from premodern society. But in Lee novel's, the tradition had been destructed by modern capitalism. So the poor or the farmer felt the pain under the pressure of the rich and the powered. In this situation, the powerless people get the pleasure from the storytelling site from their community. Sometimes the story didn't have sufficient evidence and sometime the story was obscene. But with the crossing the truth and the false, this story, storyteller, and story sites inspired the powerless people and gently tended their wounds. In Lee's novels, the story gave possibility of subversion to the powerless people, also. Actually Lee, Ki-young had a cultural experience of storyteller, therefore narrators in his novels has the character of storyteller. Lee was the storyteller and the novelist, both. Lee's novels show us the transition from the oral culture to the literal culture in Korea.