현대의학과 환상통 : 이응준의 약혼을 중심으로

Abstract

Modern medicine has early experienced the absence of mimesis and has been trying to replace the absence with objective grounds and experimental data. However, as medicine became science, the crisis of medicine spread more widely. Microscopic powers and violences are invisible, but individuals are powerless and vainly unable to resist. The anguish or introspection about the situation is sometimes described in stories such as An Engagement by Lee Eung Jun. An Engagement is mentioned in this article due to the writer’s attitude, which shows his introspection and desire for harmony through the wounds of each trivial character. The writer is unceasingly talking about suffering people in his story and his seriousness enables readers to find his stronger sympathy over life and death than in any other medical stories. In fact, it is impossible for readers to comprehend the confusing propositions which the writer pours out, and even uncomfortable to read the story. Nevertheless, the propositions are always in contact with reality. Perhaps it is not the writer’s confusing propositions that make us uncomfortable. It might be ourselves who are always alienated and starved. We can say that the characters’ pains and wounds are phantom pains caused by the absence of mimesis. Since there is no affected area, their pains cannot be measured by only scientific medicine. However, the current medical profession regards objective research evidences as absolute truth and allows them to be the sole criterion. Although scientific skills such as DNA analysis and MRI scan can be the substitutes for doctors’ judgment, so much of medicine is still interpersonal relationships. An Engagement. As a person promises to marry another, as all beings together in the world promise to subordinate to one another, every subject is consistently a valuable part of each other for the writer’s eyes. He is aware that it is originally impossible to get engaged to the world, but he does not give up the possibility of genuine communication. In today’s post-modernism society, where a large number of pathological views define the members and the world itself, endless questioning of existence and digging into pathology will be the only way to reduce the gap between individuals and their world. This article does not say that a literary work will lead the change of medical paradigm. It sprang from a desire for medical humanities to gain more interest of the medical field, where the encounter between literature and medicine is still unfamiliar, and to make medical education recognize the importance of humanities. Starting with this work, I believe that the humanities will help us to find the solution to the age of absence of mimesis and to the crisis of medicine.