판타지를 바라보는 장르론적 입장

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find the genre characteristics of fantasy by analyzing its internal structure and qualities. Up to now, the fantasy has not been recognized as a genre of Korean children’s literature and it has been considered the same as or confused with similar genres such as children’s stories using fantasy and fairy tales. It is because western fantasy stories have been introduced to Korea in recent years while the theoretical foundation of fantasy is still very weak. Even though the fantasy genre is distinguished from the traditional fantasy genre in the existing children’s narratives such as children’s stories and fairy tales, its difference has not been recognized. It will be possible to distinguish the fantasy genre from the traditional fantasy genre in children’s narratives and clarify the characteristics of each genre by identifying the unique genre characteristics and qualities of fantasy. To find out the awareness of fantasy as a genre in Korea, discussions on the fantasy genre are examined. It is to examine the fantasy genre historically. The first time the fantasy was recognized as a genre was by Lee, Odeok in his “Fantasy and Reality”. He suggested that the fantasy should be considered as a genre rather than ‘a fantasy’. He presented the characteristics of fantasy such as the differentiation between reality and unreality as its base. Won, Jong-Chan said the fantasy is a novel like narrative unlike children’s stories. Kim, Sang-Uk classified the fantasy into 4 types according to the unique structure of fantasy, two worlds. These authors tried to differentiate the fantasy from similar genres, or classify its types but they did not analyze the internal qualities of fantasy to establish it as a unique genre. The genre characteristics that differentiate one genre from another are expressed by the internal qualities and the boundary between similar genres will become clear based on this. What are the internal qualities that decide the characteristics of fantasy genre? This study uses Maria Nikolajeva’s fantasemes concept to analyze the internal structure with which the fantasy creates a surreal world. Fantasemes indicates the magical elements the fantasy genre have. Especially,the secondary world structure is the fantasemes that covers the entire fantasy narrative. The fantasy genre creates unique chronotope that is different from the one created by other narrative genres according to the composition of primary world, i.e. the real world, and secondary world, i.e. the surreal world,By using the boundary between two world structures, chronotope in which reality and fantasy are organically combined is created. Such boundary is the result of the work of fantasemes such as ‘passage’ and ‘hesitation’ between two worlds, ‘time distortion’ and ‘secondary time’. This study also discussed that after 1950s, the western fantasy has the tendency of breaking up the boundary between the two worlds. Such change is a sign of children’s fantasy obtaining adult code and becoming more psychological. Nevertheless, even in such new type of fantasy novels, implicit boundary is a necessity. Because it is inevitable that the fantasy elements revealed in the fragmented form behind the reality obtain internal reality in the tense relationship with the reality. The internal structure of fantasy genre is a characteristic that sets it apart from other traditional fantasy genres. In other words, the fantasy uses two world structure based on the secondary world while the world in children’s stories or fairy tales is the primary world. And surreal events and situations unfolded in children’s stories and fairy tales are based on animism world and they are accepted as reality. It is different from the fantasy that uses two world structure by creating a tense relationship between reality and fantasy through magical elements such as ‘hesitation’, boundary and passage between worlds. Reality and fantasy, the composition principles, are the two axes that form the fantasy genre. Depending on which axis works as the composition principle, the nature and type of fantasy is decided. Structural characteristic of two worlds based on reality and fantasy works as duplicity of fantasy genre. Such duplicity is an element that makes the fantasy genre ‘similar to and different from’ other traditional fantasy genres. In other words, the fantasy is structurally different from children’s stories but it belongs to the traditional fantasy form as it uses fantasy as a medium. Therefore, this study defines the fantasy genre as ‘Children’s novel that deals with surreal world.’In other words, the fantasy is a novel as a genre but it should be considered as a fantasy narrative just like children’s stories because its style uses the surreal world, fantasy, as a medium.