「타인의 방」, 「내 여자의 열매」의 소설 공간과 ‘변신’ 모티프

Abstract

This paper analyzes the residential space called an apartment and the desires of contemporary people surrounding it, targeting Choi In-ho's 1971 work Stranger's Room and Han Kang's 1997 work My Woman's Fruit. Both works are stories of a couple living in an apartment, and have one thing in common: communication between the couple is not smooth. Also, it can be pointed out as a common feature that the transformation process of one of the couple is depicted at the end of the work. The apartment in Stranger’s Room and the apartment in My Woman’s Fruit respectively reflect as media the desires of the middle class in the 1970s and the desires of the working class in the 1990s. The male character in Stranger's Room desired an 'unique life', but is completely alienated from his neighbors, his wife, and the objects he owns, and eventually transforms into an object, thereby he is reduced to a medium revealing that the daily life he dreamed and believed in was nothing more than an illusion, and that the illusion has been completely broken. On the other hand, the male character in My Woman’s Fruit desires to ‘live like others’ and responds lukewarmly to his wife’s illness, ultimately reaching a catastrophic conclusion where he witnesses his wife turning into a plant and must even accept her death. Stranger's Room and My Woman's Fruit can be said to be ‘fantastic narratives’ that borrow surreal or unrealistic motifs that are difficult to happen in reality. Otherwise, the two works are also ‘narratives of disillusionment’ in that they show the process and results of the collapse of fantasy. The world that the husbands in Stranger’s Room and My Woman’s Fruit believed and desired to be real was nothing more than an illusion. The ‘objects’ and ‘plants’ left in the place where their illusions were shattered seem (at first glance) to be surreal and fantastic novel devices, but in reality, they are a sign of disillusionment and at the same time a metaphor or symbol of reality.