노년과 젠더의 문화정치학 - 박범신 노년소설『은교』의 경우

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discuss the cultural politics of the old age and gender by focusing on Park Beom-sin's novel about the old age, that is,『Eungyo』. This novel represents tense power relations between an old man, ‘Lee Jeok-yo’ and a young man, ‘Seo Ji-woo’. In the novel, incidents involving the two men and their truths are intervened in or revealed by another two characters, ‘Eungyo’ and ‘lawyer Q’. Relationship between Lee Jeok-yo and Seo Ji-woo changes over time from master/disciple, father/son or provider/beneficiary to master/slave, mind/body, the old/the young or the have/the have-not. Thus, the two men of same gender confront with each other. Despite he is a main protagonist, Lee Jeok-yo falls into being other person only because he is old and sick. In the novel, unconditional exclusion of old people blocks and isolates Lee Jeok-yo who has even more cultural capabilities and unique personality. Park Beom-sin attracts attention to the otherness of old age by representing it with a character, Lee Jeok-yo who are very sensitive enough not to be just considered an old person. The novelist criticizes there's a cultural mechanism in which dichotomy between the old and the young and exclusion of old people are taken for granted. This study sought to find solutions to the isolation of Lee Jeok-yo who goes beyond borders between anxiety and death and his will to kill from the perspective of cultural politics. This move would help directly understand the reality and desire of the old age and overcome the dimensions of prevalent exclusiveness and social violence against old people, newly establishing a cultural horizon in which communication and coexistence with old people and the ethics of desire for them are recognized.