한강 소설의 메타텍스트성과 치유의 서사 - <눈 한 송이가 녹는 동안>(2015), <작별>(2018), 『작별하지 않는다』(2021)를 중심으로

Abstract

After the novel “Human Acts” was published in 2014, novelist Han Gang has put out three novels, with three year interval respectively, “While a Snowflake Melts” in 2015, “Farewell” in 2018, “Impossible farewell(Impossibles Adieux)” in 2021. This study takes notice of two-faceted unique metatextuality that makes possible congruous understanding of the three novels and gives the perspective to see the three novels as a novel series. Firstly, these three novels share metatextuality that Han Gang did not use actively in her foregoing novels. These are some features of such metatextuality. A narrator exists, who is a novelist in Han Gang’s novel and can be viewed as Han Gang herself. The title of a novel is the same as the title of a work in the novel. These characteristics provide space where the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred. The metatextuality can be seen as a try to reconstruct identity as a novelist by encompassing the pain and the limitation which Han Gang likely met in the endeavor to represent real life sufferings retrospectively after the novel, “Human Acts” publication. Therefore, this study sees the three novels from the same vantage point as the narratives about the pain of posterior manifestation of actual sufferings and delves into the arc in which the identity as a novelist is being formed using the concept, ‘ironic passivity of subject’ stemming from Gilles Deleuze’s ontology. A novelist character in Hang Gang’s novel comes across a situation where there is no choice but to partake in the pains unavoidably. This compulsory situation makes ‘ironic passivity of subject’ and through the ‘ironic passivity of subject’ novelist identity is formed. This study digs into such novelist identity making process. The ‘ironic passivity of subject’ is the standpoint that the answer for how pain-ridden history can be lead toward new direction is attainable especially in ‘ironic passivity of subject’ dimension. Passivity means not to get unnerved or to abandon oneself but that ironically, when one gives oneself loosely in order to be used by other people as some apparatus, one can find her or his own latent trait. Passivity also means that the situation where compulsory painful choices and sufferings exist foreshadows the future where remedy and revival come. Secondly, albeit three novels are not published as a novel series and have no common characters, clear and wholesome understanding of each novel requires intertextual and juxtapositional interpretation. Therefore, three novels can be viewed as a novel series and should be read like a novel series for appropriate comprehension. Doing three-novel-wide research, this study finds intertextuality of three novels, catches feedback meanings of texts across three novels and investigates the point where the possibility of cure for suffering-ridden history can be made structurally concrete. Especially, the latent meanings of foregoing novel “Farewell” are exhumed by following novel “Impossible farewell(Impossibles Adieux)” and newly-viewed theme of foregoing novel “Farewell” reinforces the message of following novel “Impossible farewell(Impossibles Adieux)”. Such feedback feature exhibits the remedial viewpoint of history that thoughts and discourses in present change and reconstruct pasts retroactively and provide propelling force toward future. This study analyzes three novels, which can be treated as a novel series, namely ‘snow series of three novels’, with the perspective of close intertextuality of each novel. This study overcomes distorted understanding and flawed evaluation of Han Gang’s novels that can take place when the novels are examined separately and individually and sets Han Gang’s newly tried metatextuality and intertextuality as the narrative of healing confronting historical violence.