《우리시대의 영웅》 다시 읽기: 『따만』을 중심으로

Abstract

This article examines about『Toman』worthy of further study among the five chapters consisting of Lermontov’s <A Hero of Our Time>. In『Toman』Pechorin represents the personal characteristics, which can be compared with those in the other chapters, by revealing his defects and problems about ‘way of seeing (the world)’, ‘way of recognizing’ and ‘lack of will’ etc. These factors, like Pechorin’s decline as the main character and the loss of Byronic heroism, etc., mean the decadence of the typical romantic hero and imply that Lermontov gets out of the frame of Romanticism and that his literary tendency changes into Realism or Anti-Romanticism. Moreover, this study investigates the correlations and consistency of each chapter, focusing on the structural issues of『Toman』- fabulas, plots, and point of view of the narration, etc. Commensurate with his reputation as ‘the master of small form’, Lermontov maximizes the effect of narration by utilizing the limited fabulas and intentionally arranges the five chapters consisting of the work, by considering the flow of internal plots, but not the flow of chronological order of the events. That is, the author portrays Toman, situated between Part 1 and 2, as the person who plays a role of the medium of the two contrasting relationships and as an artistic equipment to secure the distances of narration between ‘the narrator’ and ‘I’, between Part 1 and 2, and furthermore between Romanticism and Anti-Romanticism, by describing Pechorin as the romantic prototype in Part 1 『Bela』and『Maksim Maksimych』, and Pechorin’ inner world (Pechorin’s memoirs) in Part 2『Duke’s Daughter Mary』and『The Fatalist』. Thus this study can ultimately make a positive contribution to the comprehensive research on the work 《A Hero of Our Time》through the in-depth analysis on 「Toman」, relatively unsatisfactorily researched so far.