The Wings (novel)

The Wings is a short novel written by the Korean author Yi Sang in 1936 and published in magazine Jo-Gwang (조광). It is one of the representative works in psychologism or intellectualism literature from the 1930s. It expresses anxiety, self-consciousness, depression and ego destruction.

Synopsis
It begins with a famous phrase “Have you ever seen a stuffed genius? (박제가 되어버린 천재’를 아시오?)". This is described in the epigram written inside the rectangle in the introduction. The epigram can be interpreted through Yi Sang's 'mirror image'. An epigram can be divided into three parts with the greeting of 'Goodbye'. In addition, 'I' and 'you' appear in the epigram. If 'I' is interpreted as Yi Sang himself and 'you' as the reader, it can be seen as suggesting the reader how to read the novel "Wings". There is the phrase; "Block off the 19th century if possible. Dostoyevsky's spirit seems like a waste." This phrase can be interpreted as giving the reader advice to Yi Sang, referring to the interpretation above. Yi Sang defined the '19th century' as an old thing that did not reach the 20th century, so it should be sealed off, and made 'Dostoyevsky' the representative of the "musty" old era. Contrary to this, he confesses that he is one with Dostoyevsky and possesses a 19th-century soul.

The main character 'I' and his wife live in a brothel. ‘I’ is not healthy, has intense self-consciousness and has no sense of reality. He was ‘Wife’s husband' and got his wife by trial and error.

After his wife goes out, he goes to her room to smell her cosmetics or burn her toilet paper with a magnifying glass to replace his desire for a wife. He pondered for several days on why his wife's guests gave her money, and concluded that it was a pleasure. He goes out while his wife is gone, wondering what kind of pleasure it is. He wandered aimlessly from street to street until well into the night without spending a penny, losing his reason. When he went out many times like this, he catches a cold. She uses this as an opportunity to give him sleeping pills to keep him from leaving the 'sunless room'.

After finding the Adalin box in his wife's room, he goes up to the mountain to study his wife. ‘I’ ate six sleeping pills at once. ‘I’ sleep there all day and night, and wake up. He thought that he had taken aspirin and that she had taken adaline, so he returned home sorry for doubting his wife. Seeing him, his wife got angry and said, "Do you stay up all night stealing or playing with other woman?". Feeling unfair, he spurned his seat and went out. ‘I’ finds himself on the roof of Mitsukoshi and recalls his past.

After leaving Mitsukoshi, it was a little difficult for him to tell whether it was right for him to return to his wife. The siren of noon cries, and ‘I’ wanted to shout “Wings, spread out again! Fly. Fly. Let me fly once more. Let me fly just once more".

Publication
Yi Sang was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1933. After his main works, including Crow’s Eye View, he wrote The Wings, and traveled to Tokyo. He died in 1937.

This work was published in Jo-Gwang (조광) in September 1936. The English version of this work was published in 2001 by Ahn Jung-hyo and James B. Lee by Jimoondang Publishing Company.

Significance
This work has historical significance in that it changed the literary technique of depicting self-consuming and self-disintegrating intellectuals of the colonial period and reflects the problem of social reality to consciousness.

In prior 1920s first-person point of view novels, the reports and confessions of witnesses and actual experiencers were not internalized by external expressions or planar constitutions. In this novel, these things were embodied through internalized experiments through the expression of psychology. It is considered a turning point of novel history.

The marriage relationship is a metaphor for the life in which the value of 'I' is neglected from daily life through the appearance of the husband being raised.

The paradoxical emergence of 'I' to overcome the obstacles of self-division and to seek self-reliance was shaped by experimental literacy done by Yi Sang.

In particular, the internalization of consciousness and psychology has a new significance in the literature in the 1930s, in that it did not have to ignore social reality by replacing the pathology of colonial society with the contradictions and conflicts of individual life stories.

Adaptations

 * Yi Sang, a character based on both The Wings and its author, featured in the 2023 video game Limbus Company created by South Korean studio Project Moon.
 * Fly, My Wings, a song by Mili that references the novel.
 * The 1968 film The Wings of Yi Sang was directed by Choi In-hyeon. Shin Sung-il, who played the lead role, won the Grand Bell Award for Best Actor for his performance in this film.