후위(後衛)의 공포와 전위(前衛)의 환상 : 1990년대 장정일의 소설과 포르노그래피의 형식

Abstract

Jang Jeong Il’s literature has been acknowledged in the context of the controversy on the propriety in terms of its period and validity of the postmodernist discourse in the 1990s. It thus became virtually impossible to separate his literature from postmodernism. This paper, however, focused on analyzing a series of pornographic fiction by Jang Jeong Il, to examine the internal knowledge of how his writing encounters postmodernism and is disintegrated. Through such analysis, this paper aimed to show that the fantasy of the avant-garde overlaps with the fear of the rear-guard, which remained as vestiges of the era of ideology. This paper is centered on two main issues. First, this paper examined the tension between narratives, as some narratives were chosen and others excluded until a narrative corresponded with the “postmodern design.” This study took note of the exclusion of the mother’s narrative in Jang Jeong Il’s works, which is related to the fear of “livelihood” which was obscured by the aura of “ideology.” Second, this paper found that the number of pornographic illustrations increased and the sexuality became more pronounced in Jang Jeong Il’s fiction by time. Continuing on the discussions in the aforementioned chapter, the next chapter related the fear of livelihood with the inclination towards “pornography,” that is, with the fantasy of “sex unrelated to reproduction.” In the final chapter, this paper focused on the literary dilemma induced by the attitude to subsume the reality using fantasies and point out that such dilemma resonated with the sense of crisis that existed in literary circles in the 1990s.