2003, Vol.16, No.

Journal of Japanese Culture 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.36

pISSN : 1226-3605 / eISSN : 2733-8908
https://journal.kci.go.kr/JJC

Asakusa described in Asakusagurenaidan is a city polluted with the smoke of evil, and crowded with beggars, vagabonds, and prostitutes. However, we can find here the hope to reconstruct the city ruined by the earthquake. In this city two girls, Yumiko and Haruko, are leading their lives, with Yumiko as a major figure in the first part of the novel and Haruko as a major figure in its second part.Yumiko, shocked at the unhappiness of her elder sister abandoned by her lover at the time of earthquake, is determined to live as a male, not as a female and lead a male life. But her deep consciousness urges her to recover her feminine nature. Yumiko disappears from the scene after the poisonous kiss to Akaki, and she is displaced by Haruko, who emerges as a feminine female figure. Haruko is confirmed her fate as her destiny, but Asakusa transforms her destiny into the fate to be regulated. Her determination to lead a life of fate to be regulated makes her lead a life of absolute femininity. Asakusa in Asakusagurenaidan is a world where the ships of the Yumiko and the Haruko make fresh voyages over, with the Yumiko in the first part of voyage and the Haruko in the second. Asakusagurenaidan is a story of sailing of the two small ships builded in the shipyard of Asakusa over the stormy ocean of Asakusa.

In ancient Japan when medical science and science were not developed, the names of diseases left in the documentary records were not many because of the lack recognition of diseases. People in ancient Japan depended much upon the folk beliefs in the recognition of diseases and they depended upon the folk beliefs rather than the doctors or medicines in the matter of treatment. Although the names of diseases expressed in the documentary records were not a few, even in the ancient times of the lack recognition diseases, 'Mononoke' which could be applied to any kind of diseases stroke the terrors into the peoples' hearts. 'Mononoke' was widely used just like the pronoun of diseases from a slight symptom of disease to a fatal disease or a contagious disease. Even in ancient Japan there were doctors and many kinds of medicines, but people who recognized the cause of a disease as 'Mononoke', a phenomenon of nature, believed that in order to treat a disease to conquer 'Mononoke' was the most effective method through the spells and prayers of ascetics or monks. When there happened to be a patient, he looked for an ascetic or a monk instead of a doctor or medicines. Therefore, people in ancient Japan thought the spells and prayers the best methods to treat diseases.

What I have compared and analyzed above can be summarized as follows: First, there are some structural between Soseki's novels. 『The Night Dream』, The Seventh Night , and Choi's novel 『The Square』. Second, some differences were detected in describing the suicides between the two novelists' works. Third, I have uncovered the obvious differences of the motives for suicide between the two novelists. Fourth, I have pointed out the relevance between the differences of suicide and the modernization process both in Korea and Japan.There are some differences which can represent most of the characteristic differences between the two novelist's works. In The Seventh Night , we can see the conflicts and anxiety of the contemporary intellectuals against the Japan's sudden modernization and its civilization following the influx of Western culture. The novel embodies the individual anxiety and sorrow prevalent in the society of the modernization oriented Japan. 『The Square』 reflects the problematic conflicts which a young intellectual feels between the two opposing ideologies at the time of turbulence from the independence to the Korean Conflict. This fictional embodiment stands for the political thoughts and systems and the conflicting ideologies in the modernizing society of North and South Koreas.