제수알도 부팔리노의 『전염병 전파자의 소문』과 토마스 만의 『마의 산』 비교 연구 - 질병, 죽음, 사랑의 테마를 중심으로

Abstract

Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, published in 1924, and Bufalino's Plague Spreader's Tale, published in 1981, have many similarities in form and content. The two novels are similar in that the main character suffering from tuberculosis grows mentally in a sanatorium, experiencing various intellectual experiences about life, death, illness, love and life. The authors Thomas Mann and Bufalino actually stayed in a sanatorium because of tuberculosis and lived in a sanatorium. There is something autobiographically common in projecting those experiences into their works. Both works were influenced by Romantic literature, which saw tuberculosis as a sophisticated tool to ennoble the mind and make it understand the meaning of life and death. For the narrator of Plague Spreader's tale, the disease was at first a kind of escape from life, a sign of shame and weakness and a stigma, but gradually it became a noble coat of arms showing spiritual nobility. Hans Castorp in The Magic Mountain falls in love with a Russian woman, Madame Chauchat, in the sanatorium, and the narrator in Plague Spreader's Tale falls in love with the ballerina Marta and finds vitality in life. Both main characters have something in common: they keep the X-ray of the woman they love, whose lungs have been destroyed by tuberculosis, but their importance in the novel is different. Although Madame Chauchat is primarily the reason why Castorp continues to stay in the sanatorium, her role is not large compared to the other characters, and she does not have a significant influence on the protagonist's change and growth, while Marta continues to be the center of the story and has a decisive influence on the process of love, hope, despair and return to everyday life. Both works show elements of a Bildungsroman as the sick character grows mentally in a sanatorium through various intellectual experiences about life, death and living. In the Magic Mountain, the debate between Settembrini and Nafta occupies a large part and makes Castorp mature intellectually, but in Plague Spreader's tale, there is no political and philosophical debate, and it is about the meeting with Father Vittorio wondering about the existence of God. This is because one feels that all values ​​have been destroyed because of the first and second world wars and that only the agony and pain of individuals who felt abandoned by God in the face of death remain. Through Marta's personal story, Bufalino criticizes the collective madness and the irrational history that have made her a dishonorable stigmatized.