재난의 생명 정치와 연대의 (불)가능성 - 2000년대 한국소설에 나타난 팬데믹 질병과 '종말'의 감각

Abstract

This paper examines recent disaster novels based on the phenomenon of pandemics or the rampant spread of infectious diseases with a focus on the issue of “solidarity.” Since 2000, Korean literature has been led by dystopic imaginations such as disasters, collapse, and the apocalypse. This tendency is symptomatic in terms of emphasizing that a community (or the whole Earth) is endangered by the occurrence of a natural disaster or pandemic and the end of the human race is imminent. Certainly, “disasters” are not a new subject matter given that it often appears in modern novels. However, “disasters” in recent disaster novels are particularly intriguing in terms that they are presented as the product of a modern paradigm. In modern novels, “disasters” are dealt with as an exceptional event that temporarily shakes the daily life of the middle class and the stable order of society, and normality is mostly restored through the citizens’ spontaneous solidarity and cooperation. On the other hand, the main materials of disaster novels since 2000 are problematic in terms that in these materials such as climate crisis and zoonoses, an event that makes solidarity impossible or contact itself becomes the cause of a disaster. With the awareness of this problem, the present study classified Jeong You-Jeong’s 『28』 and Pyun Hye-Young’s 『City of Ash and Red』 as works based on the impossibility of solidarity, and Choi Jeong-Hwa’s 『Story of a White City』 and Choi Jin-Young’s 『Toward Where The Sun Sets』 as works based on the possibility of solidarity. All of the four novels are based the spread of a pandemic as their subject matter. Jeong You-Jeong’s work emphasizes humans’ violence and collective madness against the backdrop of a situation in which public order and security are absent, whereas Pyun Hye-Young’s novel is focused on an urban structure vulnerable to disasters, the way biopower works, and the destiny of an individual who lives a life without an exit amid the crisis. On the other hand, Choi Jeong-Hwa’s work deals with the spread of an infectious disease that causes the loss of “hands” and “memory.” The writer criticizes capitalism that deprives us of the value of humanity by contrasting urbanites who live a comfortable life by internalizing this loss with those who resist this loss at the risk of their whole existence. In this novel, “hands” and “memory” symbolize humanity. Choi Jin-Young’s novel suggests another possibility of responding to “disasters” through a family that wanders around the world to avoid the situation of an infectious disease spreading rampantly. It is particularly noteworthy that this novel portrays the guardian of patriarchal order that puts the safety of his “family” first as an existence who indulges in violence toward others and describes each generation as having a different response to “others”, the existence other than the family. In disaster novels written in the 2000s, “disasters” function as an opportunity to reveal that what we have considered natural in everyday situations was not natural in reality.