최명익 소설의 기차 공간 연구

Abstract

Trains are a major means of driving the modernization of a society. Therefore, the mode of operation of the train has a meaning as a barometer showing the identity and the direction of the modernization of a society. The novelist, Myung–ik Choi, symbolized the self-consciousness of a colonial intellectual who lived at the end of the late Japanese colonial period The representative works are “Non-characteristic person”, “Sim-mun” and “Jangsamyisa”. These three works, which are published at similar intervals, organically show the changes in the subject consciousness of the contemporary artist. In other words, Myung-ik Choi is shaping the changing subject in the change of the way of expressing the train space. The aspect of the subject changes from the subject who is immersed in himself to the subject who perceives the imbalance of social identity and personal identity, and to the subject who finds the other and feels the possibility that he has not been able to find from the inside. “Non-characteristic person” symbolizes the contradictions and cracks of the modernity of Joseon through the three figures who have a contradictory value system and identity and are bound to be distanced from each other. It shows the attitude of three people through three areas: the starting point, the destination, and the train space. At this time, the train space played a fragmented role in connecting the house of the father with the contrasting aspect of the house and the lover's house. This division was a spatial division and a space reflecting the divisive psychological world of the speaker. “Sim-mun” shows a person on a train that forgets one’s starting point and runs to his destination without any special purpose. The person who is disturbed by the surveillance and moral evaluation of the police power reflects the situation of the colonial Joseon who could not establish self-identity in political confusion. Therefore, the train space reflects the social reality more specifically than “Non-characteristic person”. Finally, in “Jangsamyisa”, the situation of Joseon, which was completely conquered by the Japanese rule, is expressed as a series of events that take place inside the tertiary train. However, the artist does not draw narrative to mere despair but shows attitude of pledging a changeable future by means of signifying the train as an area containing some new possibilities that people create. In this way, Myung-ik Choi showed intensely the political situation of Joseon and the reaction of characters through the train space. And the change of the aspect was inscribed in the work which was made at intervals about two years. This is a literary historical point in that it was a meaningful attempt to critically examine the ruling system that had dominated the reality of the Korean people at the time and to reflect on modernity itself.