불/가능한 ‘환대’의 서사-손창섭의 「가부녀」를 중심으로

Abstract

This article examines targeting Son Chang-seop's 「Kabunyeo (Failure to be a father)」 focusing on the ethics of otherness latent in ordinary daily life. Based on Levinas' theory of the otherness, it analysis one old man’s story of transition from the subject of ownership to the subject of hospitality, revealing the ethics toward the other latent in a specific layer of his life. First, this article examines the missing point that the old man Kang encountered in his later years, and the problems of the fantasies of becoming a “father” of a girl who is his co-worker to make up for it. This article focuses on the limits of the same(le même) folded in the change of Old Man Kang, who undergoes transition into a subject of care and consideration through involvement with a girl named Jong-suk. Jong-suk is desctibed as an obedient daughter or a vulnerable victim in the father-daughter relationship led by Old Man Kang. This explains why Kang’s attept to make father-daughter relationship is bound to end in failure. It is because he faces Jong-suk, but only projects his own fantasy instead of her face. The chapter 3 analyses the failure of building father-daughter relationship and traces the presence of the other shrouded by Kang’s strong desire for making Jong-suk his pseudo-daughter. Based on the theories of empathy and shadow images, this article reveals the fact that a father-daughter relationship that ended in failure leads to the withdrawal of identity and the orientation toward the other at the level of discourse. Furthermore, focusing on the fact that the metaphor of Jong-suk, which transforms into a daughter, lover, and wife, eventually converges into a symbol of holy love, it confirms the withdrawal of identity and the manifestation of others that break down relationships centered on oneself. In the last chapter, absolute passiveness(obedience) and the ethics of responding are explored through the reversal of the relationship between the subject/other, which is realised in his giving all his property to her. In the relationship with Kang, the subject of caring and goodwill, Jongsuk’s position is from the recipient of Kang’s caring to one who hold real power. The last chapter focuses on such change, from which it explores Levinas’ absolute passiveness and ethical obligation for the subject to treat the other with hospitality. Furthermore, in his choice to bestow all his property and disappear into the darkness, we read the responsibility of the subject to respond to others because he is already in a relationship with others. Kang settles up false accusation aginast him under misappreciation by donating all his property, which is nothing other than manifest of the ethical responsbility of the subject who realizes himself only after being indicted and standing before the judgment of others. Gifting reveals the ethics of responsibility for the other that takes superiority to the subject.