재생되는 전쟁, 반복되는 서사—한국전쟁 소재 북한소설의 육체성—

Abstract

This article tries to examine the moments when physicality is revealed in the text of North Korean literature using the Korean War as its subject. In order to overcome the technology gap with human will, North Korea's Korean War epic emphasizes anger at the enemy. This anger is shaped by the will and passion to overcome an unfavorable war situation, but at the same time, it reveals the physical limitations of humans, which are bound to be weaker than machines. Thus the body of a soldier becomes an object to be overcome, and North Korean novels manifest signs of attempts to erase hunger-like weakness from the machine. For soldiers against the machine of war, the 'weakness' of the flesh is a limit to overcome, so it is gradually removed from the narrative. In particular, the War on the Liberation of the Fatherland is formalized as a victorious war in conjunction with the image of a leader. As the narrative of the war hero repeats itself, the scenes of the physicality of war and reproduction for the battle disappear. As such practices are repeated, North Korean novels dealing with the Korean War are filled with simple narratives and cross-sectional characters. But literature does not only follow fixed customs. Deformation occurs in the process of solidifying and repeating the typical model, and customs are exclusive. Paradoxically, North Korean novels metaphorize modern society by using customs. For example, the 1995 novel, which reveals the limitations of the body and the pain of hunger, chooses the Korean War as the background to escape the danger of reality. "The Fatherland Liberation War Literature" functions as a kind of detailed genre and fantasy. This particular genre of custom is also read as a chapter of new possibilities that metaphorically conveys a message about the modern society where text lies.