카즈오 이시구로의 『부유하는 세계의 예술가』 속 부역자와 탈식민주의 멜랑꼴리 연구

초록

This paper aims to explore literal, historical and metaphoric meanings of ‘sympathizer’ and ‘treason’ in An Artist of the Floating World written by a Japanese English writer, Kazuo Ishiguro who won Nobel Prize in 2017. In An Artist of the Floating World, Masuji Ono, a painter and war criminal who used his paintings as propaganda for Japanese Imperialism, narrates his life story to unknown narratee called ‘you,’ Ono’s understatement and euphemism in his narration rhetorically hide his past in which he collaborated with Japanese Imperialism. This paper first of all analyzes how contrast between his successful past and depraved present is represented through description of space including ‘the bridge of hesitation,’ ‘pleasure district,’ etc. Ono, as an unreliable narrator, looks back on his glory which was not represented realistically but selectively embellished. Yet Ono is not able to obliterate fully his personal mourning for the loss of his son and melancholy, which is founded on the fantasy of the loss of Japanese Imperialism or Japanese fascism. The paper utilizes Sigmund Freud’s theory of melancholy and Paul Gilory’s theory of postcolonial melancholy to expound Ono’s melancholy. The paper then pries into theoretical explanations of fascism, totalitarianism, and imperialism and then explores the contradictory doubleness of collaboration and treason in Ono’s life after delineating how German and Japanese intellectuals went through collaboration, treason, and renunciation in history.

키워드