식별의 인상학 -북한소설의 출발과 행로-

Abstract

The point of this article is that the North Korean novel had set up the frame of the physiognomy which identifies positive and negative through the presentation of human figures. The purpose of this article is to look at the context in which identification is required and the way or manner of physiognomical presentation, so to shed a light on the course that the North Korean literature has walked. From the Liberation period, the physiognomical identification was required to be an act of rationalizing what kind of orientation do the people ought to have and on which side they have to stand on. Identification has become a collective task under the dominance of political ideology, and therefore the positioning has been forced to appear as political choice-belonging. The reason why North Korean literature (and writers) adopted the form of advisory literature should be explained in this way. Advisory literature that presents “correct” attitudes, behaviors, and standards was intended to be a collective guideline that renews the people. The tenant farmer ‘Won-Cheomji’ in Lee Ki-young’s short story Gaebyuk (1946) shows that accepting and affirming the new reality of land reform is a way to identify who he is. LeeBuk-myoung’s Nodong-Ilga (1947) divided the physiognomy of the exemplary worker who manages the body and emotion in a valid and desirable direction for production, and cases that did not. The image of Kim Il-sung was presented as an physiognomical ideal that herald the opening of a new era (Han Sul-ya’s Gaesun, 1948).Lee Tae-jun’s Munji (1950) showed the fate of “anachronistic”person who did not immediately affirm the North Korean regime. The North Korean novel, which was started through a combination of physiognomy and advisory literature, became a megaphone for specific contents and topics by simplifying the conflict through the composition of the contrasting characters. Especially, the redundant representation that would confirm the superiority of New Man and supremacy of North Korean regime through the physiognomical division showed a persistent tendency to be eugenical. For example, while North Korea was depicted as a special nation that achieved a virtuous morality under the wise ideological guidance, American soldiers were described as greedy, cruel and barbaric races that embody the devilishness of invasive imperialism. This is the result of rationalization of discrimination by appropriating moral or ideological merit, and ethnic typification. Tribal narcissism has provided basis for leader cult and has been reinforced by it. However, North Korea has gone the way of irrevocable paranoic isolation. When the represented positive hero is regarded as an example to be justified to follow, or it is regarded as an unrealistic supposed image, physiognomy cannot be a critical base that make people engage in valid positioning seriously. It is indeed ironic that the North Korean literature, which started with physiognomy, has reached the point of impossible the practical contribution of physiognomy.