김만중의 『구운몽』과 라캉의 욕망이론

Kim Man-joong's Guunmong and Lacan's Desire

The purpose of this study is to analyze how human desires are expressed in Guunmong, Dream of Cloud Nine, with the device of Lacan's desire. It is a dream vision novel. 1n the stage of Sungjin's dream, external narrations are formed as triple structure, the real-dream-real world. The Buddhist monk, Sungjin desires worldly wealth and honor. Characteristically, his desire is realized in his dream by being reborn as Yang Soyou who is Sungjin's Other. According to Lacan our desires are not our own, they are the Other's. In arena of Lacan's desire, the symbolic-real-imaginary forms a trio of intra-psychic realms. Sungjin expresses his desire in the form of a demand, but in the very process of making that demand something of the need is left out or leftover forever. Lacan calls this a residue or a margin and it is what becomes desire again. Desire, therefore, can be satisfied in the imaginary. Thus what Sungjin desires is never realized in the real world, for the real resists representation in Lacanian theory. This can be explained the reason why Sungjin's desire is embedded only in his dream.