「목마와 숙녀」의 기호학적 연구 -‘버지니아 울프’와 ‘숙녀’의 차별성을 중심으로

Abstract

「The wooden horse and the lady」 is Park In-hwan's representative work that has been generally praised by many scholars, but there are conflicting opinions in terms of literary evaluation. It has been described as 'the best representative poem of the post-war period', but it has also been criticized as 'a work that is mired in the limits of sentimental nihilism and whose difficulties are not clearly resolved'. In this paper would like to suggest a new way to read 「The wooden horse and the lady」 in depth by paying attention to the differences between "Virginia Woolf" and "the lady" in Park In-hwan's 「The wooden horse and the lady」 . First, in Chapter 2, this paper focused on the poem's opening lines (1)(2)(3) to reveal that Marie Laurentin, Lauren Bacall, and Virginia Woolf, who were artistic inspirations through Park's life history, can be connected in a similar semantic family. In particular, they noted that these female artists could be the "anima" in Jung analytical psychology. In Park's poem, the sign 'the lady' is interpreted as a sign of absence as well as a sign that suggests the 'future' or 'ideal'. 'the lady' does not mean 'death', but rather 'an idealized (sunny and hopeful) future that was inherent in the speaker'. In other words, the phrase (3), "The hem of the lady's dress as she rode away on her horse" does not refer to the death of Virginia Woolf, but rather to the state of the long-dreamed-of ideal future (a sign of absence). In addition, in the binomial opposition of [Earth:Sky], Virginia Woolf, as a figure in the reality projected by Park In-hwan's Anima, appears as an idealized being that can be willfully pursued and reached from a much more realistic perspective than the lady. In the end, Virginia Woolf and the lady are not sharply distinguished at the beginning of the poem, but as the poem progresses, they become more clearly differentiated as symbols that establish the 'opposition of reality and ideal'. Chapter 3 analyzed lines (4)-(16). After the absence of the lady, Park In-hwan does not go back to the past and forget reality, but rather goes through the same process of re-experiencing the decades of defeat and downfall in fast-forward. The past could never be a space of memories and consolation. It was (12)(13)(14) that the lady had to look at carefully in the reality of the invisible ruins. This is because there is a manifestation of the will to say goodbye to the "once upon a time" when literature, life, and love are dying, and now we must say goodbye to that "once upon a time". Looking at 「The wooden horse and the lady」 as a whole, the strong willed narrative of "I must" appeared five times. These are the points where I most strongly oppose the acceptance of the poem as a work of futile sentimentality. Through the active acts of saying goodbye to ruins, death, or the past, facing, remembering, listening, opening one's eyes, and drinking, Park strives to endure a reality without a 'lady' (future, ideal). In Chapter 4, this paper analyzed the second half of the poem after "Lighthouse," from (17) to (23). Important here was the context of the word "feminism" in (19). In 「The wooden horse and the lady」, feminism was not closed, but open to the future. When it is not easy to break through reality through the expression of will alone, the lady (future, ideal) is absent, but it is the 'the wooden horse' that functions as a mediating symbol that implicitly and continuously associates the lady with the present reality or life on earth. In (20), Park shows that he does not only endure the reality of the ruins by remembering 'Virginia Woolf' as the 'ideal orientation of reality', but also tries to incorporate the 'the lady' symbolizing 'high ideals and the future' without giving up. What is important here is that Park In-hwan is resolving his literary anguish with the help of his inner self, or "anima." If Virginia Woolf is more of an "ideal guide at the periphery of reality," then the "lady" is a "high ideal guide at the far horizon" who guides Park In-hwan at a deeper unconscious level that he cannot recognize as his anima. "Pity" or "sorrow" can be read as an emotional signifier that refers to a primarily sentient state, but it also refers to a deeper level of unconsciousness reached through the guidance of the anima, an emotional state in which the aesthetic methodology to combat the pessimistic and futile real world is successfully realized. The last five chapters examine the second half of the poem, from (24) to (31). The most disparate line in 「The wooden horse and the lady」 is (24), "Like a snake that found its youth through two rocks". The "two rocks" are an evocative metaphor for the union of the two guides, symbolized by the "the lady" and Virginia Woolf, and a subconscious image that previews the perfect state of unity that Park eventually achieves. In the same vein, we can also see that "liquor" is not a symbol of revelry and indulgence, and that liquor serves as a positive mediating symbol that transmits traces of the heavenly "stars" to the earthly speaker's heart within the opposing spatial sign system of [Earth:Sky]. Thus, in the second half of the poem (25), the phrase "I must drink" becomes not an act of despair, but an extremely important act that allows the speaker to endure the reality of devastation and continue living without completely giving up hope for the future. This is not to say that 「The wooden horse and the lady」 ends with the integration of the ideal with the apparent reality, or with the triumph of such endeavors. The "the wooden horse" reappears against the poetic speaker's will, the "bell" rings in his ears, and the "sound of the autumn wind" in (31) serves to push the speaker into another "despairing reminiscence". In the end, if we analyze 「The wooden horse and the lady」 in the context of Park In-hwan's life and the whole work, and with the help of deep psychology and semiotics, we can evaluate it as a product of his deep anguish, where he moved back and forth between the present and the past and thought of the future, but did not give up on reality and stayed here and tried to somehow survive the reality of the ruins. Guided by the two anima in his unconscious, he faced 'Virginia Woolf' and 'the lady' as differentiated beings without completely identifying them, and made a fierce effort to integrate 'the ideal guide who exists near reality' and 'the ideal guide who exists in the distance'. Park's sophisticated urban lyricism, which was rare in the 50s, was molded into compelling images and words. 「The wooden horse and the lady」 can be considered a representative work of the 50s that balances popular appeal and literary depth.