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The Meta-fictional Features and Effects of Eel Stew

Lee Kyungran 1

1부경대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article is an attempt to verify the reasons why Jihye Kwon's EelStew fails to present a unifying theme since words of a character in theinner narrative conflicts with comments of the narrator who belongs to theouter narrative,This novel is a meta-fiction in which the narrator of the outer narrativeis established as an author that created events of the inner narrative. Therefore, the narration of "I" in the outer narrative takes the form ofcomments on characters and events of the inner narratives. The narratorof the outer narrative argues in favor of "return to the tranquil life" throughPicasso's Eel Stew painting. However, the following symbols of the innernarrative strongly imply the exact opposite : the "monkey illustration", the"cockroach illustration", and the "Solmijae" illustration strongly suggest thecharacter's runaway impulse, the reluctance of return, and the incompletenature of the character's return, respectively. When words of the narrator and the characters are in discord, therearises a need to choose the statement that would compose the theme of thewhole story. Such a disunited theme is related to a post-modern narrativeform of meta-fiction. In meta-fictions, authors, narrators, and characterstranscend dimensions, their perspectives and voices combining, conflicting,and overlapping. The author's monopolistic authority on the theme is left at best unstable, and in the end, this polyphony itself becomes "onemeaning". Therefore, ambiguous perspectives and narrators in severalscenes can be explained through the concept of polyphony. Until now, there has been considerable critical acclaim regarding theliterary techniques of Eel Stew, but a lack of study with respect to specificaccomplishments that those techniques achieved. I believe that this studycan be a meaningful attempt to complement the lack thereof.

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