한강 소설에 나타난 포스트모던 환상과 에로스의 회생-「내 여자의 열매」와 「몽고반점」을 중심으로-

Abstract

This thesis looks into how Han Kang's fantasy novels attempt the revival of eros in this era of postcapitalism. In the era of postcapitalism, the logic of commodity invades even the realm of personality and excludes useless others, who are then abandoned as if they were wastes. In this age when capitalistic rationalism has reached an extreme, empathy on others is weakened and eros of sharing each other's feeling in daily life declines. However, the potential of resistance gets created right there where the power of capital is at work; The postmodernist imagination that disassembles extreme rationality in order to create a space of different another code. The novels of Han Kang search for the revival of eros through the fantasy of muti-codes that crosses the rational reality and leaps into the space of another code. Han Kang's fantasy novels with the aforementioned qualities are distinguished from monadic fantasy novels of the modernism. In modernistic fantasy novels such as 「Metamorphosis」(Kafka), the protagonists get castrated from the reality and deserted for giving meaning to fantasy. A similar process of castration of the protagonists, who metamorphosed into beings of fantasy, is depicted in Han Kang's fantasy novels. The castration process in Han Kang's novels, however, is also a process of creating a code different from rationality. For this reason, also revealed in her novels is the process of leaping into a space of a different code and thus reviving eros, and this is done through another character who understands the protagonist that is being castrated. For example, in 「My Woman's Fruit」 the process of the wife's castration as she gets bruised is also a process of creating the fantasy of muti-codes by her becoming plants. At that moment, her husband expresses his eros toward her through crossing to a fantasy space by risking his life and leaping. In 「Mongolian Mark」, the brother-in-law, who is fascinated by the Mongolian mark of the sister-in-law gradually being castrated, creates a fantasy space through the art of body painting. A revival of eros is attempted here through the leap to a fantasy space of art by her becoming a flower petal. This thesis examines that such multi-code fantasy is the reinvention of eros as a resistance to distribution of the sensible by postcapitalism. Whereas distribution of the sensible sensibility by postcapitalism disintegrates eros by making other invisible, Han Kang's novels attempt to revive eros by making other visible again. Han Kang's novels imply that, in the era of postcapitalism, a fervent desire for social changes will revive only if eros for other is revived.