가브리엘 루아의 「세상 끝의 정원」에 나타난 희망의 신비

Abstract

This paper analyses the meaning and symbolism of the 'end of the world' and 'garden' which are used as the key words of the title of the novella, and which also play a significant role in the narrative line. Furthermore it investigates the spirituality shown in Marta's life. At the center of the plot lie the hardship that Marta underwent as an Eastern-European immigrant and Marta(now as an old woman)'s memory that picks up her past life stories in the face of death and tries to find out the meaning of her existence. Marta's life and her thought show the fullness and beauty of her 'life of soul', and they shine on her life that may look insignificant, and they also lead into an essential ontological introspection, calling forth the religious and spiritual echo. The narrator "I" poses essential religious questions to readers by telling about Marta's life and reflections which are symbolized by ‘the end of the world’ and ‘garden’; in doing so, the narrator makes them contemplate upon and consider the meaning of human existence. In the novella, the end of the world symbolizes Marta's harsh life mixed with desolate space at the geographical edge of the inhabited world, disease and pain, death-approaching moment, dissolution of family, alienation, loneliness, ennui, and death. However, it is the garden that Marta tends to that bestows light and happiness upon her unsuccessful immigrant's life. The garden symbolizes the beautiful and happy life that she is dreaming of and the new world that gives birth to beauty, where everything harmonizes with others. The garden shines more brightly in contrast to Marta's harsh life symbolized by ‘the end of the world’, and the readers are invited to pay attention to Marta’s attitude of gardening. The love and hope shown in her gardening indicate her will to live which shows her endless endeavors to create a better life, and they make her dream of something spiritual beyond her earthly life. Marta's quest for hope in her "death-in-life" situation liberates her soul and shows her belief in the eternal and the immortal. The spirituality of hope shown in Marta's life symbolized by 'the garden at the end of the world' is, like the narrator "I"'s powerful existential and poetic experience through Marta's garden, the pathway of salvation that liberates the human existence.