이상(李箱), 공포의 증인

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analysis the meaning of the fear in LeeSang’s literature. The fear mentioned in LeeSang’s literature was aroused from depth of despair that ‘everything was already done’. He was caught by tuberculosis and in the face of such misery, he pronounced that scarred time is fatal and he himself is nothing but a its carcass. But relate the fear to his personal problem is not my intention. My point is LeeSang’s inward physiognomy filled with fear could be regarded as a historical portrait. The corrupted time was a time that the modernity and colonial capitalism carried out their purpose in the colonial field, so the fear could be read as a response to them. I have read LeeSang’s first novel December 12th as a literary starting point that indicate how the fear inscribed on his heart. This novel, based on his memory on adaptation to father’s elder brother, reflect the trauma of transfer and tried to represent the cause and effect of ‘unfortunate fate’. That is the ‘karma’ accumulated by life-hurt and self obsession. Karma never can be vanished, so the unfortunate fate was inevitable retribution. In December 12th, the cause of the fear was unfortunate fate that trod on his feet as a effect of karma and his absence anticipated in the midst of irreducible time. The unfortunate fate can be a result from the advent of modernity in colonial field. Rapidly and aggressively transferred modernity proceed disturbed and destructive time and makes difficult any attempt to restoration or any foreseeing towards future. LeeSang’s fear can be researched as a symptom of colonial unevenness that caused from transferred modernity. If dis-turbance and destruction were an aspect of the capitalization, the fear was a fear to capitalization that penetrating in details of everyday lifes and so gains omnipotent power that control everything. Helplessness against the absolute power of capitalization and alienated time in which human was vanished must be the cause that makes the fear unavoidable. Incidentally, LeeSang showed his sensation and desire also was caught by spectacle－condensed by capital as image. As far as caught by spectacle, anybody can not stand out of the disturbed and destructive time. Actually, his fear can be the fear to unfortunate fate materialized by himself. Escape from ‘concrete country yard’, he departed for Tokyo that he thought as a center of modernity. But contrary to his expectations, he also felt despair in Tokyo that nobody can’t stop horrible speed of time so called 20th century. It was impossible to find out the desirable model from modernity. To become a witness of fear was only possible choice to LeeSang. The way to become a witness was to preoccupy the catastrophe that he can expected. The carcass of time already reached to the end, in sum, the ‘stuffed genius’ was a form of existence that showing the evidence of fear. Because he himself was a witness of fear, it must be hard for him to keep a reflective distance from his problems. He has fallen to kaos. But, or therefore his fear was not a abstract or metaphysical one. It was so serious enough to be concrete. Though it was hard to get over, his concrete fear reminds the history’s concrete contexts where it originated. That is why the fear can be the totality of LeeSang’s literature.