This paper examines the process of psychoanalytic exploration of Lee In-seong's second novel, Infinitely Low Breath (1989). Psychoanalysis is also called deep psychology because it explores the unconscious, which is the depth of consciousness. In othe...
This paper examines the process of psychoanalytic exploration of Lee In-seong's second novel, Infinitely Low Breath (1989). Psychoanalysis is also called deep psychology because it explores the unconscious, which is the depth of consciousness. In other words, performing psychoanalytical exploration means looking into unconscious instincts or desires beneath consciousness. Therefore, the reason this paper seeks to examine the process of psychoanalytical exploration of Infinitely Low Breath is because this novel is a process in which the narrator ‘I’ explores the object and basis of his unconscious desire.
There are two special insights that this paper provides by analyzing the process of psychoanalytic exploration of the novel. The first is to gain insight into the specific aspects in which this process of exploration is revealed through linguistic signifiers. For this purpose, (post-)structuralist linguistics by Saussure, Jacobson, and Derrida on the intersection structure of metaphor and metonymy, and psychoanalysis by Freud and Lacan, which apply this to the exploration of the unconscious, are utilized. Through this, it can be seen that the language of the first half of the narratives from About You to Geuljujeong is the language of intellectual metaphor, and that the language of the second half of the narratives from If You Saw Him Then to An Infinitely Low Breath is the language of probable metonymy. Second, we gain insight that this psychoanalytical exploration finds out the common sense of humans enjoying the Other. Through this, Infinitely Low Breath will be revealed to be the result of a rigorous psychoanalytical exploration that tracks the common sense that is the basis for enjoying the Other, the object of desire, by structuring ‘my’ desire into a linguistic signifier.