‘죽음의 집’의 기억－염상섭의 <표본실의 청개구리> 다시 읽기

Abstract

This paper is to reread ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’, one of Yeom Sang-seop’s early representative works in a slightly different context. The ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ have been very richly interpreted and studied. What I want to pay more attention to in this paper is the correlation between the ‘March 1st Independence Movement’ and the neurosis and schizophrenia of the two characters in the fiction, ‘I(X)’ and ‘Kim Chang-ok’. It is well-known that the ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ is a fiction that is a back story of the ‘March 1st Independence Movement’. Therefore, it is common practice to interpret of the neuropathy of the narrator-‘I’ or the madness of ‘Kim Chang-ok’ as ‘depression of colonial period’ or ‘political madness’ due to the failure and frustration of the ‘March 1st Indendence Movement’. To go further than this is the reading which universalizes this neurosis and madness to the mental qualities of the modern man. This interpretation is reasonable, but it has some limitations of excessive abstraction and uncommon ‘generalization’ when reading in the context of the fiction’s composition and narrative strategy, and in the important context of the ‘timeness’ surrounding the fiction. What this fiction attempts to describe is the direct and physical pain that the ‘March 1st Independence Movement’ has brought. The pain that ‘I’ and ‘Kim Chang-ok’ feel is not just the ideological depression or madness brought about by the failure or frustration of the ‘March 1st Independence Movement’, but rather by more specific and physical causes. What I want to read through this paper is that the ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ is a stare and record of the “tortured person / destroyed person by torture.” The premise of this article is that schizophrenia of ‘Kim Chang-ok’ should be read as ‘tortured person’. The ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ is a story of the ‘tortured person / destroyed person by torture’. That’s the most fundamental reason for making this fiction a “frame form.” Torture was the most direct and physical shock and source of fear that Korean people experienced during the ‘March 1st Independence Movement’. Perhaps this shock and fear is more intense and direct than the abstract value or ideology of independence or freedom. Many records of the March 1st Movement testify to this terrible violence experience. At the same time, this fiction is also a story about the family of the ‘tortured person / destroyed person by torture’. The existence of ‘Kim Chang-ok’s family described in this fiction has not caught the attention of the critics. However, Yeom Sang-seop paid great attention about how much their families suffer as well as the ‘tortured person’. The reason why we should read this fiction like this is also confirmed through Yeom Sang-seop’s other novels. At that time, writer couldn’t describe directly about the torture on the surface of the text because of the “censorship” of Japanese colonial. How sensitive Yeom Sang-seop was to prison or torture is also confirmed through his other major works, “Three Generations” and “Before the Hurrahs” The re-interpretation of the ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ in this context reminds us of the writer’s capabilities and aspects of the memory and representation of the 3.1 Movement, as well as making us newly realize on the qualities of his realism. What we can confirm through this fiction is the writer’s insight not only in the harshness of ‘torture’ or in the violent suppression of the 3.1 movement, but also in the ‘everyday suffering’ that continues. And this is the trait of Yeom Sang-seop’s ‘realism’. The object of overthrow, the enemy, and the origin of fear and violence are also important, but Yeom Sang-seop has always sought to show how violence works in the order of everyday life. The violence and the “experience of violence” build up the dual “pain” that destroys our daily life and makes us to reestablish “everyday” by “destroyed daily life.” The correct understanding of this feature, often misunderstood by interpreters as popularity’ or ‘naturalistic regression’, will be a key to correctly interpreting his novels. At the beginning of his long journey of writing novels, the ‘The Tree Frog in the Specimen Room’ is located.