존 파울즈의 에보니타워 연구

Abstract

John Fowles, famous for the writer of The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, certainly deserves to be called a pioneer of postmodernism in novels, attacking the inauthentic lifestyle blinded by rational reason of the West in seemingly unusual ways of an author’s narration, clever implication and description. Besides, his collection of stories, The Ebony Tower—one novella “The Ebony Tower,” one translation “Eliduc,” and three short stories, “Poor Koko,” “The Enigma,” and “The Cloud”—integrates the works in thematic and formal ways. However, the precedent studies have not covered the last three stories much compared with the first two works. It is important to analyze The Ebony Tower collectively because the book constitutes a watershed leading to the writer’s later works such as Daniel Martin and Mantissa. This study aims at finding out the common theme of the stories and examining the writer’s literary world. This analysis reveals that the three works are closely related to each other in terms of the relationship between language and communication. “Poor Koko” emphasizes the tradition of language for connecting statuses and generations; “The Enigma” points at the collapse of linguistic rationalism which in the end works to block communication; and “The Cloud” is concerned about the fragmented language that is meant to bring about the breakdown of communication. John Fowles’s works have unique fictional structures emphasizing mysteries and the theme of self-knowledge. In his first book The Magus, the protagonist achieves the self-knowledge through a fantastic game. Meanwhile, The Ebony Tower depicts the boundary situation where the boundaries between fiction and reality blurs out. That is, acknowledged facts and fabricated fictions are intertwined with each other without keeping a proper balance between them, only to producing mystique, one that can properly be defined as “boundary aesthetics” or “fictional realism.” This fictional realism can also works as a narrative technique by which a writer could reveal the truth implicitly without forcing central message of the text. This study observes the fictional realism used in The Magus and discusses how it is deployed in the short stories of The Ebony Tower differently. Through this analysis, this study argues that the fictional realism strengthens the medieval romantic style in “The Ebony Tower” and “Eliduc” on the one hand, and produces the effect of open ending in the three short stories such as “Poor Coco,” “The Enigma,” and “The Cloud.” These stories deserve to be studied in showing the implied boundary aesthetics, on the other. I wish this study contributes to expanding research area of postmodernist novels through Fowles’s works. |존 파울즈의 소설들은 미스테리와 자기인식의 주제를 강조하는 독특한 픽션 구조를 가지고 있다. 그의 첫 번째 소설 󰡔마법사󰡕에서 주인공은 환상적인 유희를 통해 자기인식에 도달하고, 단편소설집 󰡔에보니 타워󰡕는 이 주제뿐만 아니라 주인공이 허구와 실재사이에 서게 되는 경계적 상황과 그것에 기초한 허구적 리얼리즘 서술기법을 추구한다는 점에서 이 소설을 계승하고 있다. 즉 일상적인 사실이 허구성과 만나게 되는 경계지점에서 적절한 균형을 이루지 못하고, 허구와 실재가 전복될 때 신비로움이 발생하게 되는데 이것을 경계미학이라고 정의한다. 또한 이 과정에서 작가가 자신의 메시지를 강요하지 않음으로써 리얼리티를 좀 더 온전하게 드러낼 수 있는 서술기법으로서 허구적 리얼리즘이 등장한다. 이 논문은 󰡔마법사󰡕에서 사용된 허구적 리얼리즘을 고찰하고, 󰡔에보니 타워󰡕의 각 작품들에서 그것이 어떻게 변주되는지를 구체적으로 논의한다. 그 결과 󰡔마법사󰡕가 시작한 이 서술기법이 중편소설 ｢에보니 타워｣와 번역물 ｢엘리뒤크｣에서 중세적 낭만요소를 강화하고, 3편의 단편소설들인 ｢불쌍한 코코｣, ｢수수께끼｣, ｢구름｣에서는 열린 결말의 효과를 초래함이 밝혀진다. 이 이야기들은 그동안 국내에서 많은 연구가 되지는 않았으나 함축된 경계미학과 허구적 리얼리즘을 보인다는 점에서 연구가치가 있다고 여겨진다.