고골의 「비이」에 나타나는 인간의 욕망과 정체성의 관계에 대한 성서적 고찰

Abstract

From the biblical viewpoint, characterized by Christocentrism, Viy is a combination of Romantic fantastic and social satiric elements on the basis of Christian-mythical worldview. In Viy the hero, Homa Brut is a banal Cossack seminarian obsessed with corporeal desires: food, alcohol, smoke, dance, women, eccentric and exotic stories. Actually, most objects of his banal desires except for women are typical signs of Cossack companionship based on Russian Orthodox Church in Taras Bul’ba, which is the second tale in the first part of the same cycle Mirgorod. Homa’s tragic death by a witch, Viy and other evil spirits is attributed to his banal desires, depraved from the original sublime desires of Cossack warriors, and death drive, aroused by strengthening horror before witch and Viy. During the three nights of ordeal, Homa’s tenacious corporeal desires weaken the magical powers of his mythical signs and blind reading of prayer books against the witch’s intensifying genuine lust for revenge to him. At the most crucial moment, Homa is obsessed with death drive instead of obeying his internal voice not to look at Viy. It implies that Gogol’s Christian-mythical apocalyptic viewpoint is more oriented into Christianity in that the elements of fatalist determinism derived from Baroque pessimist apocalypse and romantic demonism are integrated into superior biblical viewpoint of human being’s personal choice between good and evil. And not just Homa, but also all his comrades, the rector at the seminary, and all other Cossacks in Kiev and at the centurion’s Gothic estate, where church full of mythical motives is deserted and deteriorated, are vulnerable to the same tragic death as Homa’s death. Conclusively, Gogol integrated mythical signs and ideas into superior more Christian ideas, even if he failed to accept only the Christocentric idea of salvation in his belief system.