자아와 타자의 접속 : 宋元明話本小說의 ‘人鬼交感’ 현상 연구

Abstract

As economy and culture developed in Song, Yuan, and Ming periods of China and the citizens began to think logically and vitalized their mental activity, they did not recognize a ghost simply as a specter or an alien any more and came to emphasize its communicative role in sympathizing with human beings and responding and affecting their spiritual world. Accordingly, in those days, the number of novel works in which ghosts appeared noticeably decreased when compared with the one of the previous period. Moreover, in regard of the characteristics of the works, it was closely associated with the character’s consciousness and mental world and tended to influence his or her spiritual world either directly or indirectly. Although many “Hua-ben” novels were written in the Ching period, most of them were composed by literary men and inclined more to stimulate interest through conflicts between men and ghosts rather than the mutual response between them shown in the early and middle periods of creating the novels. However, the ghosts shown in Hua-ben novels of Song, Yuan, Ming periods are not some kinds of aliens against men or their world, exposing their concrete figures to the actual world unlike the ones described in “Ji-goe” novels of the previous Northern and Southern dynasties and the Ching period but appear as beings that lead conversation and communication in the men’s spiritual world. The ghosts in the Hua-ben novels of Song, Yuan, and Ming periods are fictitious beings unlike ‘peripheral objects’ before and are described as figures that sympathize with subjects (human beings) or contact with the human world easily. This sort of phenomenon can be the expression of mental emptiness that comes from reality filled with materialistic value or the rejection of the overemphasis on actuality or practicality. Narratologically examined, it also has an intention to enhance the narrative techniques of a work and intrigue readers’ interest through harmonizing reality and fiction in the plot properly. Like this, the theme of mutual response between men and ghosts in the Hua-ben novels of Song, Yuan, and Ming periods is not a simple composition of conflict as before but implies a variety of exchanges between men and ghosts and the richness of themes and contents as well. If the appearance of ghosts is considered as a complex response of the real world and the extension of communication, the study on the interchange and interaction between men and ghosts through the real world and spiritual world can deal with the mutual relationship and roles between a ‘man’, ‘ghost’, ‘fantasy’, and ‘reality’ more profoundly unlike the concept which defines ‘ghosts’ as a thorough periphery and an external object.