한국소설에 나타난 음식 모티프와 가족 관계의 의미 양상 - 권여선, 은희경, 구효서의 단편소설을 중심으로

Abstract

There is a need for a more fundamental and essential examination into food beyond the context of periodic phenomenon amid the recent active discourse about food. Food is not only an absolute means of survival, but also a "central practice of ego" to form an identity as Lupton said, getting deeply involved in sociality based on its unique significance and culture. Family is the first venue where human beings have archetypical experiences of food with others. "Mother, food, and love" are engraved as synonyms in the unconsciousness of a baby. In her When Fall Comes, Gwon Yeo-seon depicts the life of a woman suffering complicated complexes under the negative influence of maternal instinct with food motifs. Many different foods described in the work have direct connections with maternal instinct. "She" is the main character that grew up with distorted femininity forced upon her by her mother. Setting in her childhood wounds, she suffers from physical and psychological hunger and has no idea of how to fill herself up in rich ways. Her ambivalent feelings about "soul food" make her see that her desperate yearning for maternal instinct is of equivalence to her fierce hatred against it. The modern society makes an extreme distinction between "ideal body" and "disgusting body," objectifying them. In Beauty Despises Me by Eun Hee-gyeong, "I," the main character, am a bastard child with an obese constitution. I start to go on a diet before meeting his father in a critical condition for the last time. The goal of "my" dieting is not to lose weight itself, but to reinforce the subject's "rational control" and achieve "firm will" against the "basic object" called food and "instinctive desire" called appetite. It is to demonstrate that I, a bastard child, am not an "animal being." It is my resolution to escape from the fetters of hereditary transmission and get reborn as a free and independent being. The practical uses of the mouth are food intake and verbal delivery. In Basso Continuo by Gu Hyo-seo, the 55-year-old son and the 95-year-old father maintain their relations as a family through food and music despite their discord. There are both "eating mouth" and "speaking mouth" at the family table, but both the father and the son have an unable speaking mouth at their table as they are not good at expressing their feelings. Food and music are tools of "nonverbal communication" for them. Food and music satisfy their needs for absent femininity and enable communion between them that is impossible with words, uniting them as a whole family. These three works make an inquiry into the absolute values and complex meanings of food for human beings through family narratives. The materialization of food motifs in the stories confirms that the mechanism of "human being-food-love-family" exists in a domain beyond the dual conflicts of instinct and reason regarding the values and attitudes of parents injected into their children like food. It also makes it sure that food is the core driving force of life and a tool of communication to solidify a relationship.