가브리엘 루아의 「세상 끝의 정원」에 나타난 종말의 체험과 인간 존재의 의미

Abstract

This paper explores the experience of the end and the meaning of human existence reflected in the narrative of Gabrielle Roy's novella, "Garden in the Wind"("Un jardin au bout du monde" in French). As a narrative of impending death, this work evolves around a question: "What kind of life did you have anyway, Marta Yaramko?" The novelist effectively manages to discover the answer to this question in such a way that calls for ongoing reflection in the reader. Roy situates the heroine at the end of the world in its multiple senses. The heroine as an immigrant woman from Eastern Europe now isolated in a remote corner of Canadian prairie is at the geographical edge of the inhabited world. She is also at the end of her social and cultural world because of her lack of communication with her husband and her estrangement from her children now subsumed into the mainstream life of Canada. Finally, she finds herself at the end of the world owing to her terminal illness. This particular state leads to a review of her life followed by eschatological reflections on death, judgment and afterlife. The imminence of death intensifies the urgency of the search for the meaning of her earthly existence, which is equivalent to a judgment of her life. Marta tended a flower garden throughout her years in the hard frontier existence. This activity of caring for life and beauty becomes a symbol of her entire life, underlining her belief and hope in life. The woman herself is a garden maintained through the vicissitudes of life, a "garden in the wind", as she finally surrenders herself to the wind. Roy memorializes a simple woman's life as being eminently human, thus paying tribute to all those hidden lives that pass unnoticed and unsung. This exploration of eschatological themes and ultimate meaning in the story of an alienated immigrant woman is an act of celebration on the part of the novelist, carried on in her mature years with all embracing, integrative vision.