芥川龍之介의 작품을 통해 본 주체와 도덕 :「羅生門」,「鼻」,「一塊の土」를 중심으로

Abstract

Abstract

The name of Akutagawa Ryunosuke will immediately bring to mind his grotesque images like long nose, old woman, monkey, kaffa, nervous breakdown, suicide, etc. From his short remark in Aphorisms by a Pygmy, I could discover his message on life and his humor as well, and read human nature and contradiction repeated in life rather than darkness and grotesqueness dominated in his image. His grotesqueness is well described in Kim Nan-Hee’s Understanding of Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s Literature. This book refers ‘grotesque’ to gothic novel, in literary terms, and defines it as 'something hideous and grotesque enough to be spine-chilling.’ In Rashomon, a crow flying at corpse is seen as a transformation of ruined castle or monastery frequently appeared in gothic novels, and an old woman is interpreted as an image close to witch rather than human. Furthermore, madness(hysteria, demon) and delusion(doppelganger) in his works are analyzed. Whatever it’s grotesque in his works is interpreted, on the basis of Cesare Lombroso’s theory and regarded as extraordinary sensitivity, or genius of insanity, and his having written such works is seen as a means to express a alienated world. This study starts with the process of clearing the grotesqueness dominated in Akutagawa’s works. It is also significant in that strong images are fragmented and the remembered parts in his novels are connected. From The Nose, we look at the foolishness and contradiction of monk Zenchi; from Rashomon, human’s contradiction in front of life or death beyond this novel's penetrating images - rain, corpse, old woman, hair, and snake; and from A Clod of Earth, read absurdity of Otami’s life rather than Osmi’s selfishness. From The Nose, A Clod of Earth, and Rashomon, respectively, protagonist character’s constadiction is interpreted from the subject and moral idea, and so positive directions for which humans should go forward are to be sought after. Zenchi in The Nose can be divided into two; the individual subject and the predicative subject. Zenchi’s agony and sense of alienation is investigated from predicative subject. We compare Zenchi’s sense of inferiority with Soseki’s and look for the subject recognized by Soseki during his years of studying in the UK, in other words, self-centeredness as a national identity mentioned by Park Yu-Ha. We look for “I” from Zenchi’s contradiction. We look at moral interpretation based on monk’s ethical belief. From Otami’s way of life in A Clod of Earth, we look at the identity and status of a woman and social awareness toward woman at the time and read the absurdity of life from Otami’s labor and death. From the relationship between Otami and a virtuous woman, we investigate the subject and the moral idea. We look at the moral interpretation from the concept of traditional morals lectured by Soseki and Akutagawa and discuss the contradiction in traditional morals. We look at the changes in human behavior and the subject on the ‘problems of life (living)’ from the message sent by social status of ‘servant’ in Rashomon as long as there is no free will. For moral interpretation, we investigate the importance of moral values through the definition and flow of virtue based on the concept of virtue. To define the subject we refer to Lee Jeong-Woo’s What is the Subject?(Greenb), the Subject(Sanhae), the Wrinkle, the Offshoot, the Echo (Georeum), and the Roots of Concept(Sanhae) and Natsume Soseki’s My Individualism and others(bookworld). From Park Yu-Ha’s National Identity and Gender (literary neighborhood) which interpreted Natsume Soseki from the perspective of modern subject, we look at the modernity of Natsume Soseki and the formation of modern self-centeredness. ‘Moral’ interpretation was selected as subject after reading Akutagawa’s Tomorrow’s Moral. Of his research works, A Clod of Earth is a work written by Akutagawa when he was 32 years old (1924, Taisho 13 yrs). Akutagawa killed himself when he was 35 years old(1927, Showa 2 yrs). Three years before he died (1924, Taisho 13 yrs), he gave a lecture titled Tomorrow’s Moral for Educator’s National Conference. From the fact that A Clod of Earth was published on the same year as the time when he gave a lecture, we attempt to read morals inherent in his novels, on the premise that there would have been many considerations on morals. On the other hand, from the evidence that his spiritual mentor Natsume Soseki gave a lecture on Literature and Morality in Osaka (1911, Meiji 44 yrs), Akutagawa seemed to be influenced a lot by Soseki’s lecture. This can be inferred, based on the evidence that the contents of lecture are almost similar. To define ‘moral,’ we refer to Lee Jeong-Woo’s Roots of Concept(Sanhae), Tradition, Modern, and Post-modern(Greenb), and Kant’s Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (acanet) and conduct an analysis based on the contents of lecture done by Soseki and Akutagawa. For an original story of the novel, we referred to Chikuma Mungo.