『댈러웨이 부인』에 나타난 지속과 존재의 순간

염경순 ( Kyong Soon Yom ) 한국비교문학회 2010 比較文學 Vol.51 No.-

This paper explores how Henri Bergson`s idea of duration can give some hope for the self, for the internal consciousness to live through beyond the chaos and social oppression. The identity-focused philosophy had been the dominant stream of the western traditional philosophy since Plato. But the identity-focused philosophy has been severely found fault with since the beginning of the 20th century. Henri Bergson, twentieth century philosopher, changed the way the world understands time. In his philosophy, Bergson insists that time works as one simultaneous concept rather than working as a linear time (the past, the present, and the future). The past has an influence on the present, and the present functions with the future in mind. Bergson introduces the notion of `duration` as the time of inner experience, the time of past, present and future. Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states. That is, real duration is the dynamic temporality of one`s psychic experience that exists within the self in relation and in response to temporality in general. Virginia Woolf looked for a new form which could overthrow the technique of conventional fiction. Woolf attempted to describe something existing beyond everyday consciousness, the idea of which is connected with Bergsonian `duration`. The moment of being Clarissa encounters becomes the most significant durational moment for her while Clarissa is alone at the end of the party. This epiphanic moment of duration at the end of the novel animates a optimistic reading. Clarissa survives her day. She does not abandon her inner self, nor does she abandon her social self. Bergson absolutely had a great effect on modernist thought, particularly in the area of time. Bergson`s theories of time, duration, the self function well with Woolf`s work. He aids us to understand the conflict of the internal and assure Woolf`s belief that the internal must endure within the external world.

예술기호로서의 기억에 대한 연구

염경순(Yom, Kyongsoon) 중앙대학교 영미언어와문화연구소 2011 영미언어와문화 Vol.2 No.1

Until the early 20th century, most narratives followed a linear form, resembling the pattern of historical consciousness. But Virginia Woolf tried to look for a new form which could survey the methods of conventional fiction. Woolf attempted to overthrow the narrative technique of traditional novel and describe something existing beyond everyday consciousness, the idea of which is connected with Bergsonian ‘duration’ and memory. Memory allows linking current and past experiences in such a fashion that the two reflect upon each other; the present experience is rendered comprehensible by comparison with a previous experience, and the past is renewed and altered by its contact with the present. Memory allows for the time-filled moment of being. In To The Lighthouse, memory takes place as characters recall peculiar scenes from the past in which other characters figure. A good example of involuntary memory, specially regarding the relation between the lighthouse and James occurs in To The Lighthouse. For James, the lighthouse is in one sense an extended metaphor of his own repressed desire, but also stands for his experience of the ambivalence of life itself. The sight of the lighthouse returns him to a painful past, the day on which he felt abhorrence and resentment toward his father. James’s thwarted desire never goes away, and his sense of wonder is still suppressed when he finally makes a voyage to the lighthouse ten years later. However, the man for whom James used to feel an intense hatred is no longer there. What he sees is not an egotistical father-figure but an old man sitting and reading a book. Although James’s misery is still there, he simply chooses to give in and stops thinking about his mother. Ultimately the involuntary recollection here unites James and the lighthouse, in other words, unites him with his mother. His suppressed desire for a voyage and for his mother never perfectly disappears; hence his sense of loss resonates through the text to the end. Having ceased to think about his mother, James can proceed to his destination and complete his identification with his father, in spite of some enduring enmity toward him. The way in which James recalls the beautiful image of his mother and is anxious for reunion with her towards the end of the text recalls the narrator’s unconscious relationship with his mother. James’s recollection is much less intentional, and more unconscious, intuitive and physical. James, that is, does not go beyond the boundary of involuntary recollections. Hence he fails to release himself from the past and from his sense of loss entirely. This is one example through which Woolf suggests that the present experiences of her characters derive their signification from the past, rather than from an interior ‘spiritualization’ of the remembered object. On the other hand, in To The Lighthouse the distance between Lily and the lighthouse seems to represent the space between past and present, but in contrast with the case of James, her completion of the image seems to release her from the past and from her sense of loss. Lily can paint when she becomes closer to the essential self. She asks herself, ‘what is the meaning of life.’ Though the question was simple, ‘the great revelation had never come.’ As Deleuze suggests, the meaning(truth) is never in the impression nor even in the memory, but is identified with ‘the spiritual equivalent’ of the memory’. And that is what Lily seems eventually to achieve through her painting. Lily desperately tries to grasp something, which escapes her. Her anguish, pain and horror resulting from her sense of loss comes and goes many times but finally subsides when she attains the accomplishment of her metaphysical or mediated desire. The solution of the problem of Lily’’s painting here may be the unification of the two opposite leading characters, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay.

『파도』에 나타난 시간과 파도 이미지

염경순 ( Kyong Soon Yom ) 한국비교문학회 2011 比較文學 Vol.54 No.-

This paper explores literary portrayals of time and wave-image in The Waves written by Virginia Woolf. Specifically, I apply Henri Bergson`s theories of time to the text so as to analyze the meaning of The Waves. Bergson`s idea of duration, memory, or of an eternal flux which precedes the categories of time and space, has a close resemblance to Woolf`s treatment of the fluid movement of time within the consciousness. Virginia Woolf looked for a new form which could overthrow the technique of conventional fiction. Woolf attempted to describe something existing beyond everyday consciousness, the idea of which is connected with Bergsonian ``duration``. In addition, Woolf begins to use time as a literary element, thereby reducing her development of plot and characterization. In The Waves, Woolf would write a book told only in psychological time within the minds of six individuals. She tends to see external or physical objects in terms of their subjective significance for her characters. But at the same time she uses a large number of images metaphorically in order to represent the consciousness of her characters. For instance, in the Waves Woolf uses color, and the different meanings which particular words have for each of her characters, as symbolic images to evoke the character`s consciousness and even to distinguish them from each other. Besides, the soliloquies in The Waves demonstrates a rhythmic, fluid psychic movement that is like the flux of sound waves. Ricoeur argues that literature stands outside time and yet that regaining the original impression means that the work of art has recovered life in the extratemporal moment. For Woolf, mental space is a constantly changing reality, or in other words resembles the character of Bergsonian duration. Woolf`s writing suggests the possibility of achieving the extratemporal ``recovery`` of lost time in mental space through the inspiration of works of art. Besides, what makes her writing notably modernist in its representations of time is its focus on the unique ways in which each subject constructs or reconstructs an external world, which is thus at least as mental and individual as it is material and universal.