이태준 희곡 연구

Abstract

There have been two opinions about Mother written by Lee Tae-jun. One is the view of Yoo Chijin that the theme of the drama is filial piety and benevolence and it must be intensified by the integration of Mangi's splitted ego who is the protagonist of this work. The other is that of Seo Yeonho that the work which dramatizes the mental suffering of one intellectual man can be included in the category of modem drama because of the protagonist s social position and the contents of dialogue. Mother, however, criticizes the weakness of the intellectuals in those days and their inability, especially the attitudes of them who would put into words but didn't suit the action to the words. For example, that Mangi can't recognize tangible reality in the presence of himself at all but only complains that his real worth have not been appreciated in society, the fact that the action taken by him is only a temporary excuse, and that he is just reciting clich exaggeratively when his sister is sold for money, these show the portraits of the intellectuals of those days very well. We can confirm the silent criticism of the writer about the intellectuals in People Living in the Mountain. At first we can recognize the gap between urbanites and fire-field farmers, the different life style between the intellectuals and the alienated people, and the social disharmony between two classes in the work. It is more important that we must recognize the different kinds of gazes. Unfortunately the resistant gaze of fire-field farmers to urbanites and the gaze of urbanites to “the show of fire-field farmers which they have little chance to see though paying for it" are coexistent. But the crack of these two gazes plays the role of messenger for the intention of Lee Tae-jun. In the end the coexistence of two different lives evokes the dramatic emotions, pity and wrath, and the writer is asking to the audience what should be recognized through these two kinds of people in those days. The dramatic view of the world of Lee Tae-jun is the enlightenment and the escape from overtelelogical ideas. Those are, of ourse, contradictory and incompatible, but the writer achieved them. He didn't thought that the enlightenment could be achieved by dialogue on the stage. He thought that the realization or enlightenment should be accomplished not on the stage but inside the mind of the audience. So he restrained his desire to control the flow of the drama as possible as he could, and this effort gave birth to irony which was his favorite literary apparatus. On account of this point, the drama can be easily differentiated from other dramas by poets and novelists in the twenties or the thirties which just emphasized the enlightenment. That is to say, Lee Tae-jun is the very author who gave contempory writers the important lesson that a writer cannot produce a good drama without contemplation of the theatrical form and aesthetic methods though the times demands the particular spirits of drama Mother and Poeple living in the mountain, however, are insufficient with establishment theatricality. And this has to do with the fact that contemporary professional dramatist depreciated the drama written by poets and novelists as dilettantish theatricals. It is also the limits of the drama by Lee Tae-jun.