염상섭 단편 「E부인」과 나혜석

Abstract

It is a well-known fact that Rha Hye-seok has special meaning in the study of Yeom Sang-seob. However, existing discussions on the relationship between Yeom Sang-seob and Rha Hye-seok show conflicting aspects. Some argue that the frustration of first love led to Yeom Sang-seob 's misogyny and that it led to a negative view of the new woman, and that Rha Hye-seok was the person that Yeom Sang-seob missed. In this paper analyzed the work and their writings and memoirs written by acquaintances, under the assumption that “Madam E” is a material that helps us understand their relationship. Based on the similarities with “mourning”, this paper reaffirmed the previous discussion that “Madam E” is a work modeled after Rha Hye-seok. And this paper confirmed that Rha Hye-seok, who visited Seoul in the 1920s, met Yeom Sang-seob, and that what Rha Hye-seok had arranged for Yeom Sang-seob to match was used as the subject of the novel. Next, this paper looked at the fictionalization of “Madam E”. When fictionalizing real persons or events, there is no other choice but to be transformed. It has been revealed that the author, unlike real facts, has fabricated his first love into a beautiful romance. Until the late 1920s, Rha Hye-seok was the person that Yeom Sang-seob missed, and this fact provides implications for understanding a new woman character in his works, which requires further study. On the other hand, it is important that “Madam E” is a work that Yeom Sang-seob wrote around the time of his success as a novelist, gaining stability in life and getting married. In “Madam E”, the thoughts of art and life that Yeom Sang-seob felt at that time, such as relief from becoming a famous writer and gaining composure in life, and self-absorbed feeling of lowering the standard of work for popular readers, are found. And “Madam E” can be interpreted as a work written by a writer ahead of the wedding while clearing his thoughts and feelings about first love. But Yeom Sang-seob has distanced himself from Rha Hye-seok since the 1930s of her divorce, which seems to have led to “Mourning”. As such, “Madam E” is meaningful as a material that allows one to look into the author's personal history behind him and his thoughts on art at the time, and help reconstruct the relationship between Yeom Sang-seob and Rha Hye-seok.