<디지털 구보, 2001>을 통해본 하이퍼텍스트 소설의 가능성

Abstract

Advance of digital technology affords dramatic changes in the life styles and thoughts of the contemporary human beings. The art would not see any advances without taking advantage of technology. Wide use of computers has changed the environment of writings and further created new mode of writing, the digital narratives. This new mode of writing is represented by the hyptertext fiction since the hypertextuality is the definitional and outstanding characteristics of the digital narratives. The hypertextuality destroys the coherent structure of traditional plot-based narratives by letting the readers participate in creating their own structures. The interactive and anti-coherent nature of hypertextuality comes along with the idea of post-modernism. “Digital GuBo, 2001” is a pioneer as it is the first experimental hypertext fiction in Korea. However, it is not evident that the experiment was a success. Thorough analysis indicates that the lack of storytelling was the major weakness of the fiction. The fiction seems to fail in earning popularity from readers since the narrative structure of the original novel, “A Day of Novelist, GuBo” by Park Tae Won(1934), could not be transformed into the hypertextual alternative. In sum, the study results in two major findings : Firstly, it will never be easy to make hypertextuality and traditional novel into one-, single-moded structure, and secondly, the archetypal essence of futuristic digital narratives should be the richness of storytelling in them.