김동인 문학의 미의식 연구 (A study on the aesthetic sense of Kim Dong-In literature)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 우리어문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 우리어문연구 / 38호 / 465 ~ 490페이지
· 저자명 : 최정아

초록

본고는 김동인이 표방하는 ‘참예술’의 내적 의미망을 규명하려는 시도이다. 문학의 예술성을 강조하며 ‘미’의 영역을 구축하려했던 김동인 문학의 특이성을 두고 기존 연구들은 이른바 ‘미적 근대성’의 차원에서 김동인 문학의 예술성과 자율성을 규정하려고 했다. 이러한 연구들이 거둔 성과에도 불구하고 여전히 김동인 문학에서 보여지는 비일상적인 감각 혹은 미적 감수성의 영역들은 다각적인 조망이 필요한 부분이다.
「나믄말」(『창조』2호, 1919.3)에서 암시되듯이 김동인이 소설을 통해 제시하려는 ‘참’영역이란 잘 드러나지 않는 ‘이면’의 세계이며 이는 일상의 감각을 넘어서는 지점까지도 포괄하고 있다. 오직 ‘미’의 관점에서 세계를 판단하려했던 그에게 합리적인 이성의 눈이란 오히려 근대적인 시선의 오류이며 ‘참’된 영역은 그러한 시선에서 벗어나 있는 영역에 있음을 보여준다. 김동인은 ‘기름자’ 영역과의 조우를 통해 ‘참자기’를 깨닫는 인간형을 형상화해내며 그러한 인간의 심연이 대동강의 심급으로 제시되기도 한다. 동일성의 논리로 분절될 수 없는 근원적인 세계로서의 대동강은 바로 참(미)영역이며 김동인 문학을 추동하는 핵심적인 기제로 작용한다.
김동인이 말한 ‘참자기’가 바로 이러한 잉여적인 영역을 ‘자각’하는 인간이며 ‘참예술’이 이를 인지시켜주는 기제로서 작용한다고 할 때, 이러한 ‘참자기’, ‘참사랑’, ‘참예술’의 문제가 여성을 통과하면서 발현되고 있음을 주목하고자했다. 자신의 기름자와 대화하는 「약한자의 슬픔」의 강엘리자베트, 대동강의 흐름을 인지하는 순간 근대적인 향락을 거부하는 「눈을 겨우 뜰 때」의 기생 금패, 보이지 않는 세계를 향한 눈을 지닌 「광화사」의 맹인 미녀등이 남성적인 근대 시선에 의해 노출되면서도 완전히 분절되지 않은 잉여를 지닌 존재들이라면, 근대적인 눈이 지시하는 추한 남성까지도 따뜻하게 품으며 그 폭력성을 조절할 수 있는 「광화사」, 「광염 소나타」의 ‘어머니’가 참(미)의 영역으로 형상화된다. 이러한 측면에서 김동인 문학의 미의식은 근대의 상징질서에 속하면서도 그 너머에 있는 여성성의 층위에서 새롭게 의미화될 수 있을 것이다.

영어초록

This thesis is an attempt to establish an internal semantic network of the 'True art' that Kim Dong-In advocates. When 'True art' is a guide toward 'True self', 'True love', 'True life', 'True living' and if a novel that assumes fiction(false) as a premise is being adopted for this 'True art', in which way could this domain of 'Trueness' be signified. While existing studies replaced this domain of 'Trueness(=genuineness)' with the domain of 'Beauty' and emphasized on the study of the domain of 'Beauty' that appears unfamiliarly in early modern literature discourses, this thesis attempts to begin with indicating the problems retained in this 'Trueness' domain.
At this point it is necessary to give note to the part that in 「Nameunmal」(『Creation」 issue 2, 1919.3) Kim Dong-In emphasized the "letters hidden beneath the paper" rather than the "letters flowing the ground". If the literal world of the ground is a visible world and a revealed world, it is possible to assume that the true world that Kim Dong-In speaks of is a world of the other side, the world 'beyond' the visibility of literal order. The reasonability and rationality that this literal order displays exactly is the modern order and people who can correspond to this order would exactly be the modern subject. While the opening of the modern literature represented by Lee Gwang-Su was a world of such discourse, did Kim Dong-In deny this and intend to again create some world from a god's position.
In truth, the world of True/False defined by modern logic is insignificant in Kim Dong-In's novel. Even the verdict of the judicial branch, the most modern system which should reveal the truth, is only presented as evidence of failure to reveal the truth, and in this world even the death of a human being, which should be handled most sacredly, can be manipulated. The world of 「Will」, in which the manipulation of a document that proves innocence through death is ordered and is followed by the sentencing of true death, The reason behind Kim Dong-In advocating this literary work so assuredly lies here. Believing that True/False, Good/Evil can be determined by reasonable rationality is an error of the modern point of view, and the 'True' domain rather lies in the hysterical, unstable domain free from such point of view, the domain named as 'Gireumja'. Kim Dong-In could know this domain because he was in the position of a god instead of a modern human being complying to the modern order, but could not emobdy this into the letters of the ground. The point in which he could freely create(or reveal) a world of false through literal order, but was unable draw the true domain, this point is exactly the limit that Kim Dong-In himself admitted.
Still, Kim Dong-In definitely discovered the domain of gireumja that modern humans carry, and as the modern world's gireumja presents the flow of Daedong river. This Daedong river is the pit of modernity that can not be segmented by the logic of sameness, and at the same time the mother's arms and the original inner side of human beings that can purify the violence contained in such modern point of view. The interesting thing is that the problem of 'True self', 'True love', 'True art' in Kim Dong-In novels is organized coherently by passing through woman. While Kang Elizabeth who converses about her gireumja and true love, the Korean geisha Geum-Pae who rejects modern hedonism the moment she recognizes the flow of the Daedong river, the blind beauty who has eyes directed to the invisible world, and others are beings who keep a surplus that is not completely segmented despite being exposed to the masculine point of view of modernity, the mother appears as a more fundamental being that can nurture even the ugly males issued by the modern eye and can control that violence.
If the 'True self' that Kim Dong-In spoke of is actually the human that 'Realizes' this surplus domain and 'True art' works as a mechanism that brings such recognition, perhaps Kim Dong-In literature or art can be understood at the semantic network of feminity, which belongs to the modern symbolic order and yet at the same time cannot be established completely within it.

참고자료

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