Abstract

This paper aims to look into aspects of the theme as love in Kim young-ha's short-stories. He is a novelist who has especially concentrated on the theme as sex, narcissism, death etc. His stories dealing with these contents have exposed a deadlock of love. According to 'The mean of you', 'The murder case in the photo shop', 'A contemplation on a mirror', this deadlock has two aspects. First of all, the subject who seems to fall in love actually doesn't love anybody except him/herself. He/She believes that has an objet petit a in his/her own being. He/She needs somebody only to prove the fact that he/she has an objet petit a. In another cases, the person who seem to fall in love know well that there each partners never love or be satisfied with them. But they can't stop loving there partners who give them only pain. The key to this situation would thus seem to reside in the split between knowledge and belief. "I know well (that the situation is catastrophic), but … (I don't believe it and will go on acting as though it were not serious)." The typical attitude toward the love which finds an objet petit a in an improper object is a perfect illustration on this split. So love is impossible because we in loving with actually never love each other. We love only ourselves, our objet petit a. Or we have a split between knowledge and belief. In Kim young-ha's short-stories, not even the purest love can escape this fundamental impasse of symbolization.