TV드라마 <SKY 캐슬>에 나타난 욕망･응시･주체화

Abstract

TV dramas often cause syndromes as they imply the desire of the audience of their time. In addition to being central to the conflict, this desire may also be a symptom of one or more characters. Audiences can face their own desires and identify symptoms of the characters as they empathize with them. Therefore, symptomatic reading is necessary to interpret TV dramas. The rallying point of desire in Korean society is education. In this context, the TV drama Sky Castle(스카이 캐슬) describes the desires and conflicts of figures surrounding the educational world. Han Seo-jin(한서진), the main character of this drama, is a neurotic who is obsessed with a symbolic desire. She commits immoral acts to achieve her desire to send her daughter to Seoul National University. Other characters in Sky Castle are also obsessed with this goal, having a mimetic desire and being envious of each other. Kim Ju-young(김주영) is the person who appears to be able to satisfy the desires of the other characters. Her perversion lies in her own desire to fulfill the desires of others and she is sure that she is capable of doing so. The characters end up killing for desire, which confers mysterious plots to the drama. The revelation of the killers and their motives consists the main plot of the story. Gaze(응시) strengthens the mysterious atmosphere of the drama. There are objects(an apple, a dragonfly, and the Bible) that create crack in this narrative. The objects have nothing to do with the flow of the narrative. This causes viewers to feel that there is a certain subject that notes the characters’ desires, conflicts, and immoral conducts. In the end, Han and her family acknowledge their mistakes and normalize the whole situation but do not reach the true journey of subjectification. They enter into another metonymy of symbolic desire. That is, they surrender to the ideology of “happy family” without knowing that they are deprived. From Lacan's point of view, the main character of this drama is not successful in subjectification as it consists of realizing one’s own pure desire. In this way, it can be said that Han and her husband cannot discover their pure desire.