사회진화론과 신소설 작가, 이해조와 이인직

Abstract

In the era of Korea Empire when the accent point was moving increasingly from the West to the East, the entire society was forced into the upheaval of change. The new-style novel was born during this era; specifically during the period of patriotic enlightenment (1905~1910). That’s where In-Jik Lee (李人稙,1862~1917) and Hae-Jo Lee (李海朝, 1869~1927) are positioned from the outset to the end. The new-style novel was a mirror that reflected the social world which had to be exposed by the first Japanese offensive. This can be said that the world reflected by that mirror may vary greatly depending on ‘who’ holds ‘what type of mirror’ even if it means it was about enlightenment. This was what divided the interpretation of the canon (正典) which was referred to as the ‘father of the modern literature of Korea.’While this study considers such controversies, we would like to contemplate how the authors at the time comprehended and accepted the theory of social evolution that penetrated into subconscious currents of the ideology of the Enlightenment Party via the works of In-Jik Lee and Hae-Jo Lee as one of the methodologies in establishing the criteria of value evaluation for the Korean new-style novels in the future. We opted for this because the attitude of accepting the theory of social evolution symbolized as “The fittest survives” and “The weak fall prey to the strong" is, undoubtedly, the yardstick of determining not only the literary perspectives of the authors at the time but the criteria of their ideology. Unless this notion is considered, the study on the new-style novel is susceptible to the trap of false dichotomy that emphasizes the literary values and the politicization (‘ideologism’). In this regard, inquiring into the effect of the social evolution in the new-style novels can be an effective yardstick for estimating the relationship among discourses at the time. In other words, this will be the criteria for determining if they accepted as one of the ways to make our grounds even stronger or adopted those that belong to the attributes of the imperialism without thinking to a degree that they became oblivious of the nation’s independent status. Both I. J. Lee and H. J. Lee were one of those who fully accepted the theory of social evolution. While I. J. Lee was distinctive in the spirit of nationalism by putting a group before an individual, H. J. Lee is emphatic more on an individual’s autonomy. Their opposing thoughts are evident in their respective writings including their editorials, to say nothing of their publications. Most notably, the narrative structure of I. J. Lee’s “Teardrops of Blood” by and the discourse structure of H. J. Lee’s “Liberty Bell” are the epitome of the above statement. Further, it can be identified that the procedure of building a sense of independence by both authors is tightly linked with their publication works. With this analysis, we have reached a conclusion that the controversy over I. J. Lee’s conversion from the Enlightenment Thought to pro-Japanese. To him, pro-Japanese is was his way of practicing the Enlightenment Thought. Take Japan and the USA depicted in his “Teardrops of Blood” into account. How alienated are they from realities? It is nothing but a tool for the imperialistic pro-Japanese. In other words, it was only one of the procedures towards his extreme abhorrence against feudalism or towards pro-Japanese. In this note, H. J. Lee’s “Liberty Bell” confirms the fact that once and again that it is the product of his efforts to suggest an alternative to bolster the nation’s stance from the perspectives of independence with sovereignty rights while accepting the theory of social evolution as the current tendency. Furthermore, his discourse structure was indeed the epitome of the “dialogue novel” form. This is what made us realize that we must read both authors’books again at this time. We humbly hope that our study would be the first step in such endeavors.