Seunghee You

                                                                                                                           




  

 In Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus, Adrian Leverkühn states during his dialogue with the devil, “It is precisely the sin that appears utterly beyond redemption—so irredeemable that the sinner has fundamentally abandoned all hope of healing—that will open the true path of theology.” In the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis recounts Cain, the first murderer in human history, lamenting that his sin is too great to be forgiven, a crime devoid of any hope. Adrian argues that this very repentance of Cain brings him closest to the possibility of salvation. In other words, compared to an ordinary sinner who repents half-heartedly, a sinner who feels a pure, absolute despair—so deep as to abandon all hope—may paradoxically stand closer to redemption.

Ordinarily, human beings find it difficult to feel gratitude for the simplicity of everyday life at every moment. Thus, we often encounter stories of people who only come to appreciate the ordinary after experiencing a shocking or traumatic event. Not only in a theological sense but also in everyday life, humans tend to approach true values—such as goodness or ideals—only when placed at extremes. Because humans possess an ineradicable arrogance, they come to recognize that arrogance through extreme situations, and through such recognition are able to continue living.

The arrogant and solitary figure of Adrian depicted in Doctor Faustus may, in fact, represent the very nature of humanity itself. Humans are arrogant beings—and perhaps understandably so. This arrogance stems from humanity’s unique specificity. The things that only humans can do, and that are possible precisely because we are human, make us special beings while simultaneously providing the grounds for self-conceit. The poet Yi Sang (1910–1937) engages in self-reflection through the image of his own face reflected in a mirror, while Narcissus, the beautiful youth of Greek mythology, becomes so enchanted by his reflection in water that he ultimately falls in and dies. In this way, humans are the only beings capable of self-reflection, yet they are also fragile creatures prone to extreme narrowness and bias.

Paradoxically, it is this very contradiction within human nature that allows goodness—true value—to possess infinite potential for continuation. Humans live by experiencing extremes through countless mutually incompatible oppositions: health and illness, life and death, good and evil, humility and arrogance. In this process, they experience emotions such as anxiety, fear, guilt, and conscience, and it is from these emotions that goodness or true value emerges—thus giving rise to the infinite potential of goodness. Like a bird soaring beyond a mountain peak toward the sky, and another bird falling far away toward the edge of the earth, human life is heightened to its fullest intensity through an ongoing succession of extremes.