疾病的時代徵候──韓國文學中的疾病及其隱喻

The Signs of an Era of Illness: Disease and Its Metaphors in Korean Literature

人的一生不可能不會生病，因而只要文學不停止審視人的生命，疾病似乎就無可避免地會被拿來做為文學創作的題材或內容。疾病雖然是一個由科學診斷繼而進行治療的對象，但人類一直以來卻喜用宗教或文學來面對它。再且，疾病在文學中的再現，往往並非疾病本身，反而它常與腐敗的政治、社會或人性扯上關係。特別是現代小說在面臨生活或社會和政治的異常現象時，也經常會以一種隱喻或象徵方式將疾病文學化。因此，毫不誇張地說，疾病母題幾乎都會出現在所有的現代小說裡，不同的只是程度上的差異而已。
基於這個認知，本文將嘗試按照不同時期找出韓國近現代小說中被提及頻率較高的疾病，並舉出較具代表性的小說，作為介紹韓國文學中疾病隱喻的參數。文中所討論的疾病有近代小說中的天花、神經衰弱、梅毒，以及現代小說中的心理創傷、痲瘋病、老年癡呆症等等，而提及的作家、作品，有李海朝〈驅魔劍〉（1908）、廉想涉〈標本室的青蛙〉（1921）、蔡萬植《濁流》（1938）、黃皙暎〈歸來者〉（1970）、李清俊《你們的天國》（1975）、朴婉緒〈泡沫之家〉（1976）等，以及為了觀察韓國文學對近年來成為全球熱門話題的COVID-19的思考，將簡單地把韓國文學中涉及此議題的小說按主題分類並進行討論。

A person's life is inevitably marked by illness. As long as literature continues to examine human existence, it seems inevitable that illness will be used as a subject or theme in literary creation. While illness is a subject for scientific diagnosis and subsequent treatment, humans have always turned to religion or literature to confront it. Furthermore, the representation of illness in literature often focuses not on the disease itself, but rather its connection to corrupt politics, society, or human nature. Modern novels, especially when faced with abnormal phenomena in life, society, or politics, frequently metaphorize or symbolize illness. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the theme of illness appears in almost all modern novels, with only differences in degree.
Based on this understanding, this article will attempt to identify the diseases mentioned most frequently in modern and contemporary Korean novels from different periods. It will provide representative novels as examples to introduce the use of disease metaphors in Korean literature. The diseases discussed in this article include smallpox, neurasthenia, syphilis in modern novels, as well as psychological trauma, leprosy, and dementia, COVID-19 in contemporary novels.