The Unfulfilled Journey of a Flâneur: Reading "The Man of the Crowd" through the Eyes of the City

미완의 만보자 -도시의 시선으로 『군중의 남자』 읽기

This paper argues that what Edgar Allan Poe pursues in ;The Man of the Crowd" (1840) is not a story that can be told but an active reading that must be mediated. It is not only because the subject of the pursuit, the secret of the flaneur, remains veiled until the end, but also because the story proves itself to be a reading of various kinds of other texts: that is, the contemporary urban texts as well as the city itself. Although the 'man of the crowd' and his double (i.e. the narrator) embrace the figure of a modern flaneur, it is highly questionable whether the image of flaneur in the story fully qualifies itself as that of an ideal stroller, who can represent the free spirit of a detached collector. Rather, the narrator's flaneur reflects a panoptic perspective, systematically hierarchizing the constituents of the city. Still, it should be noted that ;The Man of the Crowd" raises questions about the idea of creation and appropriation, observation and originality, and reading and storytelling by ascertaining the impossibility of reading and through assimilating to the contemporary texts not without subtle acknowledgement. In short, this novella tries a new way of storytelling, of which meaning is not to be found in creation but to be mediated in modern experiences.