나보코프 소설의 시각성 -『카메라 옵스쿠라』(『어둠 속의 웃음소리』)를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper examines a visuality in Vladimir Nabokov`s novel, Kamera Obskura (Laughter in the Dark). One of the specific features of V. Navokov`s novels is his proliferate use of vision or visual images. In the period of modernism many european writers including Russian modernists took a profound interest in the visuality. With an expansion of optical devices like a camera, photograph and film, the meaning of an observer was emphasized in explaining the world. V. Nabokov was not an exception in this situation. In his works mirrors, the surface of water, eyes, windows, pictures and movies play a very important role in the process of developing the main theme. Especially in Kamera Obskura the main theme is a misunderstanding about the world by a subjectivity of vision. As camera obscura projects an inverted image of its surroundings on a screen, Albinus thinks a fake beauty of Margot as a mortal beauty. He sees in her face an idealized artistic images that he desired to gain in his life for so long, but she turns out to be a mere ordinary and vulgar girl in some ways. His moral blindness leads him to his physical blindness, and he finishes his life in a tragic way. On the whole, in this paper I tried to demonstrate that the title ``Kamera Obskura`` is more appropriate than ``Laughterin the Dark`` because the function of eyes, vision and observer is more emphasized in this novel. In V. Nabokov`s novels, characters who see the world with their subject vision can grow up to real artists, but if they don`t have an ability to differentiate the real and the fake, they become failed artists.