A comparison of the motifs of artist's obsession in „The Tattooer“ by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and „Tale of a Mad Painter“ by Kim Dong-in

Abstract

This paper discusses similarities in the choices of plots and motifs in the short stories The Tattooer (1910) by Japanese writer Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and Tale of a Mad Painter (1935) by Korean writer Kim Dong-in, and hypothesizes a possible connection between them. In order to find out whether these works are really connected, common literary influences on both stories and analyzed stories’ structures and motifs were compared in this thesis. Results revealed that these two works were written under the influence of the same literary works: the theme of the relationship between art and violence and the motif of the artist obsessed with the desire to create an artistic masterpiece in The Tattooer and Tale of a Mad Painter are most likely inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Oval Portrait, while motifs of sexual perversions are inspired by Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing. Not only two stories were written under the same influences, but the story Tale of a Mad Painter itself intertextually reworked Tanizaki’s The Tattooer adjusting motifs to Korean realities and making the structure more complex.