장정일 <아담이 눈 뜰 때>에 나타난 '미성년'의 의미

Abstract

The novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 by Jeong-il Jang is often considered to be "the beginning of the literature in the 1990s that emerged as an alternative of People's literature and national literature in the 1970s and 1980s". This means the reflective narration that the object, which the novel 『When Adam opens his eye』 negates, was suggested as a new alternative, but became power as a culture in the 1970s and 1980s. The narrator in the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 is surely a legal minority with 19 years of age, but, intellectually and physically, is a grown-up character. Even, since the character recollects events that occurred a year ago, the novel deals with the events as vivid, volitional memories without making them dramatized in the form of unconsciousness or nostalgia. What matters to the 19-year old minority is not to reconcile with the world, but establish its self-identity. In the traditional society, growing-up was a sort of reconciliation in the form of a rite of passage. But, in the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』, "I" reflects on the self to connect personal identity with social identity. "I" in the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』, is not "I" drawn from a result, but "I" planned in a reflection way. In this aspect, the character in the novel is differentiated from others characters in conventional growing-up narrative novels. Also, the character is clearly differentiated in the point that "I" planned in a reflection way ends up growing up as the writing self with descriptive identity. The conventional growing-up narrative novels, the time of chaos and wandering are suggested as the transitional period necessary for growing-up. But, "I" in the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 delivers special events and experiences from its own viewpoint and shows its internal consciousness. It is directly opposite to the childhood attitude that it is confusing and incomprehensible. "I" in the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 ravely expresses its own opinions about the conventional knowledge system (e.g., school and school-entrance exams) and culture (e.g., popular cutlure, arts). Although he is under age, he, as the subject and narrator writing the novel, is described as the character with descriptive identity. Of course, "I" in the novel have experiences sexually and intellectually. But that is different from the aspect of traditional growing-up narration in which a character considers itself to be an internally immature person to harmonize in a social community. “I” in the novel mentally wanders to establish its own identity, rather than to reconcile with the consciousness of a social community. Finally, "I" in the novel discovers and establishes the writing self with descriptive identity, and as a result, resists the personal life required by the community and chooses to live on its own as a single person. The novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 by Jeong-il Jang has critically been considered to be the beginning of the literature in the 1990s in the point that it refuses the culture and knowledge created in the 1970s and 1980s, and a school as a device. Strictly speaking, the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 should be reconsidered in the points that it is the discussion against the growing-up in the 1980s, and that it criticizes the cultural capital and knowledge, and false consciousness of a community in the 1980s. That is because the growing-up of "I" in the novel that Adam chose as the descriptive identity is directly opposite to the growing-up of the social self in the 1980s, which is summarized into community and popularity. By suggesting the discussion of anti growing-up in the direct opposite perspective of the growing-up required in the 1980s, the novel 『When Adam opens his eyes』 shows a new character who reflects on the newly planned self going beyond the characters in the 1980s.