최명익 소설의 ‘평양’ 공간 고찰

Abstract

In Choi Myeong-Ik’s <Rainy Road>, the symbols of Pyeongyang were propsed in five spaces. There were two settlement spaces, one being Byeong-Il’s rented room working as both the starting point and the destination, the other was the factory office. And also three spaces of movement; an alley, an odd path developed in just one side, and a collapsed old castle gate. For Byeong-Il, the settlement space of the day, factory office, was for work, and it belonged to strangers, whereas his rented room, the space for night, was to himself where he could read his books. However, overall the relative importance was higher on the three spaces of movement rather than the two settlement spaces. Moreover, although the castle gate does not appear much, compared to the other two spaces, it was the core space of the novel. Compared to other writers’ modern novels, the symbols of <Rainy Road> show the following characteristics. First of all, the heart of Pyeongyang, Dae-Dong River was completely excluded. The entertainments and the activities of Korean geishas in the upper region were not presented, and the pine forest of Giza’s grave was excluded. Second, the fact that Pyeongyang was highly influenced by Christianity was not proposed. Third, the fact that it was the biggest rising city of trade and industry was not suggested by factories, but rather, presented in a critical tone by the factory office where Byeong-Il works. Fourth, unlike other works, the old castle gate holds importance as a place with the “soul of history”. Through these, we can figure out that Choi Myeong-Ik is not a writer who was secluded in a isolated and disconnected inner side from the earlier works.