최명익 소설에 나타난 사랑의 의미 고찰

Based on Greimas’s ‘semiotic square’, this paper seeks to analyze the novels of Choi Myeong-Ik in the late 1930s to structure the meaning of love, and based on the structuralized relationships of meaning, discerned the meaning of love. Through the aspects of love, it is possible to apprehend the author’s orientation towards modernization. In his novels, ‘prescripted love’ shown by ethical love between married couples, or its contrary ‘interdit love” represented by homosexuality or incest were not present. However, women’s adultery, the contradiction of ‘prescripted love’ which is ‘un-prescripted love’ or ‘un-interdit love’ shown as men’s adultery, the contradiction of ‘interdit love’ were present. Jeong-Il and Mun-Ju’s love in 〈Characterless man〉, Mun-Il and Gye-Hyang’s love in 〈역설〉 and Myeong-Il and Mun-Ju’s love in 〈Simmun〉 were ‘un-interdit love’, whereas Geum-Nyeo and the truck driver’s love in 〈Spring and the new Road〉 was ‘un-prescripted love’. Contrary to ‘un-interdit love’ represented by men’s adultery, women’s adultery, thus ‘un-prescripted love’ by Geum-Nyeo was fatally punished by death. Therefore, no preference were shown to socially accepted love, and at the same time, none were shown to love that overly escaped social standards. Moreover, love has gone from an intelligent one where the intellectuals’ self-awareness were clashing to an instinctive one where the common seeks to fulfil the basic needs. The result of each were drawn to a woman’s death for breaking a moral taboo. It is possible to note that a woman, ‘a subject of deprivation’, rather than a man ‘a subject of abandonment’ was centered in the work in order to paradoxically seek chances of hope. However, in 〈Characterless man〉, there was criticism for the ideality of intellectuals where they blindly refused the power of capitals, through the act of Jeong-Il betraying the love for Mun-Ju. Nonetheless, it does not mean that the act was passively affirmed. Mun-Il from 〈Paradox〉 criticized those who were subject to the power of capitals, even refusing the offer as principal of his own school. Through 〈Simmun〉, Hyeon Il-Yeong betrays Yeo-Ok’s love and commercializes her. This showed how much one could corrupt under the control of money. In 〈Spring and the New Road〉, Geum-Nyeo from the country was seeking basic instincts and envying modern city life, then drove herself to destruction. This shows that she is a victim of exotic modernization. In turn, Choi Myeong Ik criticized the immature modern capitalist society through the negative aspects of love.