언어와 소통에 대한 메타픽션: 존 파울즈의 불쌍한 코코 , 수수께끼 , 구름

Metafiction about Language and Communication: John Fowles’s “Poor Koko,” “The Enigma,” “The Cloud”

John Fowles, famous for writing The Collector, The Magus, and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, certainly deserves to be called a pioneer of postmodernism novels, attacking the inauthentic lifestyle blinded by the reason in seemingly unusual ways of an author’s narration, clever implication and description. Besides, his collection of stories, The Ebony Tower—one novella “The Ebony Tower,” one translation “Eliduc,” and three short stories, “Poor Koko,” “The Enigma,” and “The Cloud”—integrates the works in thematic and formal ways. However, the precedent studies have not covered the last three stories much except for the first two works. It is important to analyze The Ebony Tower collectively because the book means a watershed leading to the writer’s later works such as Daniel Martin and Mantissa. This paper aims to find out the common theme of the stories and observe the writer’s literary world. This analysis reveals that the three works are closely related to the relationship between language and communication. “Poor Koko” emphasizes the tradition of language for connecting statuses and generations; “The Enigma” points at the collapse of rationalism represented by language resulting in the absence of communication; and “The Cloud” is concerned about the fragmented aspect of language producing the disconnection of communication. I wish this study contributes to expanding research area of postmodernism novels through Fowles’s works.