이상 문학과 요코미쓰 리이치(横光利一)

The Literature of Yi Sang and Yokomitsu Riichi - Focusing on the Novel, “The Wings”

This essay discusses the intertextuality of the literature of Yi Sang by comparing his novel, The Wings, with a novel by Yokomitsu Riichi, A Visible Louse. This essay explores how the colonial writer, Yi Sang, was “translating” or “reconversioning” the texts of the empire. There are many similarities between the two novels, including that the wife of the main character is a prostitute. She engages in prostitution, while the main character is either out or asleep. The main character, also, either secretly watches his wife engaging in prostitution, or even pays her to have sex with her. In addition, the main characters in both novels suspect and fear that their wives may try to kill them. Finally, the main characters in both novels deny the current state in which they are living. At the end of the novels, they make a determined decision to be reborn into a new state. However, the themes of the two novels are completely different. While the main character of A Visible Louse tries to shoot down the louse that makes him helpless, the main character of The Wings needs wings to go beyond his limits and become a new subject. In particular, The Wings critically portrays the mechanism of modern capitalism symbolized by money and prostitution. Yi-Sang s writing negotiates with the empire s work, and questioned the rules of capitalism enforced by the empire by appropriating it in text. The intertextuality of The Wings may be the result of the “meta writing” of Yi Sang which seeks to clearly judge the reality of Modernity. It also reveals his desire to comprehend the history of “East Asia” with a bird s-eye view to gain insight into the negative aspects of modern times. The writing of Yi Sang, as evidenced in The Wings, has the potential to negotiate with the Imperial discourse and to break down the ruling discourse within it.