‘후기’ 신소설의 장르지형학 :파연(破緣)의 문법과 욕망의 전시

Abstract

It is general to consider late Sinsoseol as corrupted forms. At 1900’s, Sinsoseol built its reputation for dedication to enlightening project which was regarded as a strategy to protect its nation-state. However, most researches agree that late Sinsoseol which appeared around 1910 has lost its drive to educate its readers and became popularized. This paper tries to suggest a different point of view to read these late Sinsoseol works. As a starting point, this paper focused on Lee Haejo’s Cold-Hearted Flower for this work has some interesting points to receive attentions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate this work’s location on early 20th century’s genre topography, and to study on the peculiarity of Gangneungjib who is a heroin. Lee Haejo used exiting plentiful repertories of narratives to create a new work. Usually he adopted narrative motives from novels of Myng dynasty or of other western cultures. However, in case of Cold-Hearted Flower, he used a real-time narrative as a model. Sosijongtusinhyang was serialized only a month ago. For Lee Haejo, it was natural to try various forms of narratives as a resource to give him a prototype for his works. On the occasion of publishing Cold-Hearted Flower, he emphasized that he covered ‘actual cases’ to write this work. From the contex ts, what he meant by ‘ actual cases’ i s e stimated a s a ‘narrative published on newpaper.’ Cold-Hearted Flower is an elaborated Sinsoseol version of Sosijong narrative. Cold-Hearted Flower shows a unique attitude compared to its contemporary genres such as Gajungsoseol or Yunaesoseol. The main narrative structure of Cold-Hearted Flower which locates this work as a countergenre to Gajungsoseol or Yunaesoseol is to break relationships in front of readers. This unique composition is involved in the principles making Gangneungjib. In this work, most characters are represented as modern individuals who have spontaneous desires. Especially, considering the discourse circumstances of the time, Gangneungjib who represents her desires as natural ones needs to be interpreted as a problematic heroin. The purpose of the writer is to display her immorality and to educate readers, but the text represents her desire as a universal, natural one in front of readers. Moreover, she reveals multi-paradigmed interiority. She has multiple desires which conflicts each other when a lot of characters are formulated as flat ones. For these reasons, Gangneungjib can be interpreted as an elaborated character with certain modern features. Unfortunately, despite of its uniqueness, Cold-Hearted Flower seems to be failed in starting its own genealogy. Considering the horizon of expectation of the time, I can assume that the very fact that it shared less with contemporary other works backfired.