탈북작가의 ‘몸’ 형상화와 윤리적 주체의 가능성 - 김유경의 소설을 중심으로

Abstract

This study analyzes the aspects of self-narratives presented in the novels by North Korean defector novelist Kim Yu Kyung. Her novels have received critical acclaim for its distinguished writing and have been praised for its aesthetic achievement comparable to that of South Korean literature at the time. Reason being, her novel realistically reproduced the reality and effectively revealed the holistic consciousness of North Korean defectors from an objective point of view. However, these broad connections limit the perspective on literature as it creates a one-dimensional understanding that literature is simply a reflection of reality. Therefore, this research focuses on revealing the author’s desire to not just simply reflect reality but to overcome it. By analyzing Kim Yu Kyung’s works <Love Song for Youth> and <Place of Human Desecration>, this paper provides evidence that the self-narratives presented in these novels represent how the protagonists not only expose their violent reality but in the process of revealing their circumstances and actions as the objects of aggression, become the ethical subjects of the narrative. The reason for this transcendence is due to the materiality of the body. Although the body is a recipient of pain when violence is acted upon it, it can also become the source of healing due to its materiality. By referencing Emanuel Levinas’ ethics of the Other, this paper demonstrates how the subject, through meeting and interacting with others, becomes the ethical subject beginning from the body where the subject first exists.