이태준 소설의 노인, 그 기호학적 의미

Abstract

The 1930's was a time of extreme political and social change in Korea. Politically, Korea was under the colonial rule of Japan. And due to gradual opening to foreign cultures, the partriarchal large-family system was shifting to the small-family system where family members would live apart. When we consider the fact that even the younger generation found this age to be a time of difficulties, we can imagine how it must have been for the elderly. Lee Tae-jun, a novelist of this time was one who frequently depicted the lives of the elderly in his novels. The elderly being the marginal man of society and thus excluded from the mainstream of society, it is the general notion that they are insensible to the external pressures inflicted upon them. But it was they who suffered the most in acutuallife. The elderly did not live to eke out a living or to pursue prestige but moves just for the sake of living. Lee uses the method of introducing similar characters in various texts so that the readers may develop a feeling of familiarity towards the characters. And when describing the elderly characters, he distinguishes the observer and narrator. The observer is usually a young, competent, educated male with a seperate narrator explaining the situation. The narrator here not only links the readers to the mind of the observer but also explains the state of mind of the main characters. Thus, the psychological distance that is developed between the reader and the main characters relies on the narrator's point of view. The reader understands the characters through the eyes of the imaginary writer, viewing them objectively and at times looking into their feelings and thoughts. The elderly characters in Lee's novels have the desire of recovering their past time and place. That is, they strive to earn money in their present lives in order to retrieve their past status, prestige and affluence. But despite their efforts to fulfill their desires, the characters would always end up in a state of despair. Their despair is symbolized by death. To retrieve their past time and place, they wait for their daughters on the road and engage in speculation but nothing avaiIs. The reality that they are placed in is a mutual ground of death and life where happiness is long gone and desires are not to be dreamed of. Why does Lee write his novels on the subject matter of the most marginal man, the elderly? Lee considers the elderly to be the biggest victims of society undergoing change, for they are the ones who suffer the most due to the changes and lack the ability to adapt to them efficiently. But a fact that can be derived from an anaIysis of Lee's novels is that the elderly characters in his stories were not passive but active. They possessed the will to achieve their desires. Unfortunatley, their ambitions and desires were not acceptable by society.