人間存在의 不條理性 : John Barth의 The Floating Opera를 中心으로 Emphasizing on John Barth's The Floating Opera = A Study of Absurdity of Human Existance

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

I investigated the background of thoughts in forming F.O., the absurdities of human existence and the new ways for living : the use of masks, the problems of suicide and free will. Modern novels tend to have experimental inclinations and clearly they mean to escape from realism : that is, the form of conventional novels. Modern novelists couldn't put the complex situations in modern age into novels with the conventional realistic techniques. Namely, in the absurd world, human being's views are treated to be unblievable, and conventional realistic techniques and truthfulness to life of novels are purposeless. So novelists must take the bold inventions. And the convention that is regarded as an important thing in modern novels is thrown away and illusions, imaginations and unrealistic techniques come here. All the artistic modes and forms are often changed into the metaphors that the novelists themselves expressed. John Barth is not an exception, either. He has become one of the major novelists since 60'. Mentioned by Charles B. Harris, John Barth belongs to the group of novelists of the absurd like Vonnegut, Pynchon and Heller, but he takes the philosophical approach more than any other novelist.
The absurdity of human existence that Barth expressed through Todd the protagonist seems to be greatly experimental but it is supported by the strong philosophical bases (i. e., existentialism, nihilism, aestheticism, ets.)
Though the F. O. seems not to be completely satisfactory as his first novel, it may be the important cause for next novels, as Stanley E. ?Human said, in the light of styles and techniques in the F. O.. Especially in the Sot-Weed Factor they are treated well.
The F. O. is a successful book because of the techniques and styles, and it is the representitive novel acting upon from Giles Goat-Boy to Chimera.
Todd, the protagonist of this novel, represents a model of modern man in today's society. He was born in 1900, and he is as old as modern age now. His illnesses(heartattack and prostatitis) provoke his sudden death and eccentricity deeply. He also belives that the laws which rule over this world are not rational but irrational and casual.
So he thinks that rational explanations in these absurdities can not be a basic treatment, but only a partial care. He hesitates to show before his decision to commit suicide the evident data for Harrison Mack because he wonders if it is valuable or not for him to suggest the data.
The contents of the case are dirty and farcical but he's not interested in the contents of it and the realization of justice of law and he perferably has an interest in the course for settling thee case.
It means that even the law, the rampart of rational, floats basically in the absurdites.
Life is a floating opera and the eternal thing is only the artistic. With this thought, John Barth uses opera and boat for the metaphors of life. The human existance in the universe is compared to a gloating opers. Opers is a work for producers and it is a play for spectators.
It means that life is drudgery and joy and it is ironical and absurd. In the metaphor of boats (he made two boats) the first one expresses the prewar(before World War I) and it means that it has hope although it is lack of skills. The second one expresses the postwar (after World War I) and it means that it has only skills without hope. After all it means that in the world only scientific skills exist without hope for human being. In addition, the boat is meant to be ill-considered compromise between illusion and reality. What John Barth wants to express in this novel is that it is very difficult for artists (in a broad sense) to understand reality. The artist representing the searching and creative mind is led to a fictionalization of reality and of our existence.
Barth ascertains that man's view of the world is rational and that the human being is incapable of understanding the universe. But certainly he intends not to substitute fictive world for reality there. He implies only that man creates illusions for the things he can not understand and therefore he resembles a fiction writer creating meaning where perhaps there is none. Campbell Tatham researches a similar conclusion saying. It is as follows :
"By insisting on aesthetic artifice, he (i.e. Todd) is able to construct a bulwark against the acceptance of personal and universal irrationality : art posits meaning. a mentary against encroaching confusion."

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 序 論
• Ⅱ. The Floating Opera의 思想的 背景
• Ⅲ. The Floating Opera속에 人間實存의 不條理함
• Ⅳ. 假面의 使用
• Ⅴ. 自殺과 Free Will의 問題
• Ⅵ. 結 論