내러티브로 재현된 진리의 상대성: 줄리안 반즈의 『내 말 좀 들어봐』

Abstract

This thesis examines his understanding on the diversity of representation focusing on Julian Barnes’ work Talking It Over. This work suggests representation’s relativity. Although the three protagonists in Talking It Over are involved in the same event, their respective stories about the event are different from each other. In addition, they do not talk to each other even in the situation when they have to and unlike the original title, the characters tell their stories, not to each other, but to readers. Like this, the fact that there are various stories as to the same event is because their stories are based on their distinctive memories, point of view and interpretations etc. Barnes shows that there can be errors when represented even it’s the past directly seen and experienced rather than memory. Moreover, among these characters, he sets up Gillian’s occupation as a restorer where he suggests incompleteness of past representation through restorer’s occupation. Furthermore, the character Oliver reads Shostakovich’s memoir. Shostakovich is said to record only what he has seen. At the same time, he says that in Russia there’s a proverb saying “People lie as if they have seen.” This proverb implies this novel’s theme. That is, although people are known to say only what they have seen, this is only in effort and lies are always contained as one’s interpretation and ego are intervened within one’s words. In the end, representation of the past cannot but be expressed diversely, depending on the person representing it. For this reason, past representation is not objective or absolute but relative and subjective.