남정현의 「분지」에 나타난 한국근대소설의 식민성

Abstract

The writing style of Nam, Jung-hyeun's novel BUNJI is unique. Firstly, a negative dialect that something once negated must be negated forever as in Adorno. Secondly, a national allegory was chosen due to the lack of expression of freedom as in Jameson. On the other hand, this novel is not only an absolute negation against the new-colonial South Korea under the USA, but also a secret discourse of self-realization and subjectivity formation of Korea’s lower class. Absolute negation is the alternative way of writing under a dictator's rule. During the time of the Korean dictatorship, some writers were trying to express class consciousness through resistance sentiment. Nam strongly negated Korea's ruling class as well as the ideology of the anti-communism and the strategy of USA. For this purpose, Nam made a binary opposition ; the oppressed and the oppressor. However, the lack of political freedom leads to the lack of the perspective for the future in the story line. It is a self-realization of the resistant subject. As a Korean novelist, he negated historical contradiction including colonial Korea, liberation and division, the Korean War, and new-colonialism, generally. Allegory, the dialectic of negation, paradox and irony are elements of writing styles of Nam. His writing was followed by Mansejeon written by Yeonsangsup, and was intertextualized with Gyeonggoguyeok. For these reasons, Bunji should be read as an expression of social realism, world vision, class consciousness and new-colonialism.