한국전쟁의 원체험과 재구(再構)의 변주 - 이청준 소설을 중심으로

Abstract

This study examined Lee Cheong-jun's literature, focusing on key word Korean War. It inquired into how shape is given to the memory of Korean War over time and how an understanding of this changed by analyzing works that directly and indirectly revealed the experience of Korean War in Lee Cheong-jun's novels. Lee Cheong-jun is an author who experienced Korean war in his childhood. And horror of war remains as severe trauma in his literature. The scars of war in his childhood repeatedly play a variation in many novels of Lee. His early work 「The Wounded」 is a novel that deals with invisible scars left by Korean War. This work shows scars on elder brother belonging to generation that experienced the war and younger brother belonging to generation that didn't directly experience the war. The author tries to reflect on his generation through a narrative given by the younger brother who cannot know a definite scar, differently from the elder brother for whom the scars of war are definite. Besides, Lee Cheong-jun critically depicts the oppressive society in the 1970s through the novels such as 「The Wall of Rumor」 and 『An Unwritten Autobiography』. The motif of 'electric light' experienced in the Korean War in his childhood is repeatedly shown in these works. Lee accuses the suppressive society of still continuing the violence in times of war through the repeat of electric light motif. That is to say, Lee Cheong-jun plays a variation on the original experience of Korean war (also known as 6․25), shock which he first experienced in his childhood, as suppressive situation at that time. Lee Cheong-jun approaches a specific Korean War issue, i.e., ideological confrontation and reconciliation issue for the first time in the 1990s. In the works such as 「Assailant's Face」, 『White Clothes』 and 「The basement」, he recalls the memory of war where people are forced to be divided into assailants and victims, and intends to grope for reconciliation through the memory. In his later novels, he reconstructs the memory of war experience in his childhood, and resolves conflicts at that time. He says that not leaving the scars of war the next generation through forgiveness and reconciliation is a task assigned to the generation who experienced the war.