삶의 허위와 사랑의 허위 - 염상섭 「너희들은 무엇을 어덧느냐」 -

Illusion of Life and Illusion of Love

In What did you obtain? which was published in the middle of the 1920, SangSeup Yeum described the custom of early modern Chosun by the love relations among modern young people. The situation of Chosun in the historical upheaval such as changing into modern society and the failure of Samil Independence Mevement was adopted as the main theme of What did you obtain?. So most characters in What did you obtain? received or were receiving modern education and also tried to accustom themselves to modern social consciousness and custom. However, all the modern civilization which was mentioned in What did you obtain? such as piano, concerts, love affair which girls and church service was used just as a code for providing characters' modernity without being connected to their modern social consciousness. Here we see a strang reversion. It is not that modern social consciousness has created modern style naturally but that acquirement of modern civilization has represented modern social consciousness. The ironical situation of modern Chosun got to be closed up by SangSeup Yeum in What did you obtain? through showing us those characters' lives filled with illusion. In case of the characters in What did you obtain? even though they could feel they loved each other, they failed to express their love to each other. And they tried to accept 'love' just as the synbol of modernism without understanding the concepts of 'love' emphasizing spiritualization and mentalization, that is, without understanding of equality of man and woman based on modern social consciousness fully. Every character in What did you obtain? has something in common by pursuing illusion and falsehood. With that an era and a world of Chosun in its dawn of modernity could be established in What did you obtain?.