This study would focus on objects in the plays of Lee Yong-chan, a representative, the young playwrights’ in the 1950s, revealed its function and analyzed the aspect of combination with dramatic elements to investigate the characteristics of his dra...
This study would focus on objects in the plays of Lee Yong-chan, a representative, the young playwrights’ in the 1950s, revealed its function and analyzed the aspect of combination with dramatic elements to investigate the characteristics of his dramaturgy and theatricality. Lee Yong-chan came to receive attention, showing dramaturgy different from the existing realistic plays in his debut play Family, and the existing studies of his dramaturgy are limited to the work Family, so it is somewhat difficult to judge that the world of his works and the characteristics of his dramaturgy have been understood. Thus, this study would analyze the characteristics of dramaturgy in the works written when he was immersed in writing plays, earnestly, focusing on the object and investigate the dramatic effect revealed through the analysis. In plays, utilizing objects occupying the stage space based on visual symbolism reflects the genre characteristic of plays that are texts presupposing staging, and it is meaningful to focus on the symbolism of objects and analyze works, examining its function, in that the characteristics of a playwright’s dramaturgy can be understood through that.
To investigate this, Chapter Ⅱ examined the definition and function of the concept of an object in plays focusing on theatre semiotics. Traditionally, objects have been used as a concept that refers to props used in the drama; however, since theatre semiotics appeared, it has been recognized as an individual being constituting the drama. The definition of an object shows a tendency of expansion to a more comprehensive concept and the liquidity of the definition as the ages pass. To summarize the function of an object, the object is divided broadly into instrumental, directive and symbolic functions, and the overlapping functions of objects can fill the space of the drama.
Chapter Ⅲ draws up a list, finding all objects in stage directions, action directions and the characters’ lines in Lee Yong-chan’s plays and examines objects, focusing on the elements of the drama. The noticeable role of objects in his plays can be divided into the embodiment of stereoscopic characters, the mediation of dramatic conflicts and the drive of actions in the drama.
Objects utilized in the process of embodying the characters may symbolize the characters’ economic power or social status because of the fact that the characters own them, itself, and through their attitudes toward the objects, their inner spaces and psychological qualities are implied, which is a characteristic. Lee Yong-chan showed high utilization so that even one object used can let the readers read various meanings through that. He allows an understanding of the characters’ social and economic status in the contemporary context, actively using the object with a referential function in which the spatiotemporal background of the work is revealed. In addition, he utilized objects that reveal family members’ generational characteristics as an aspect of the embodiment of characters, for the object that highlights generational characteristics in the relationship between parents and a child effectively functions in revealing psychological traits like characters’ values. Lastly, he used objects to reveal characters’ taste and personality. He symbolically presented the characters’ unique personality or psychological state differentiated from others’ by presenting characters who possess specific objects.
When an object is utilized for the mediation of a conflict, the conflict can be implicitly revealed because of the object’s symbolism. Moreover, since events and situations that caused conflict could be presented visually, a theatrical effect could be maximized. Lee Yong-chan’s plays, mostly, tended to show conflicts among family members, and the works where the atmosphere of a patriarchal family was dominant were characterized by an emphasis on the duties and responsibilities imposed on a child in the relationship between parents and the child. The conflicting situation that cannot but be simply presented, if it consisted only of lines came to have symbolism through a concrete object and functioned so that the stage could be more stereoscopically imagined by the readers through visual utilization.
The object that serves as a drive of actions in the drama has a function that implies what will happen in the future, stimulating characters’ actions, or becomes a clue to the resolution of a conflict that exposes the hidden truth. Lee Yong-chan promoted the suspense of the drama, utilizing foreshadowing as a dramatic technique to induce readers’ curiosity and interest and increase dramatic tension. Since the foreshadowing presents the outline of dramatic deployment to appear and allows the prediction of the future, it functions so that readers have a curiosity about the progress of events and can understand the flow of the drama.
Like this, in Lee Yong-chan’s plays, objects, which have been used as props and as a metonymy of reality, further express characters’ personality or conflicting relations metaphorically and drive the characters’ actions in the works. Moreover, the function and utilization of objects in his plays increase the density of the drama as characterized by overlapped uses, not limited to the formation of plots such as the embodiment of characters, the mediation of conflicts or the drive of actions in the drama. One object secured the equivocality of symbols, performing various roles according to the development of the drama, and judging from this characteristic, the object becomes a symbol with high utility in Lee Yong-chan’s plays. Thus, analyzing Lee Yong-chan’s plays, focusing on the functions of objects would contribute to the understanding of the world of his works as well as the characteristics of his dramaturgy.