이병주 초기 소설의 자유주의적 성격 연구 －작가의식과 작중 인물을 중심으로－

Abstract

Lee Byung－joo’s early novels inquired into the destiny and meaning of liberalistic intellectuals during the imperialistic war footing at the end of Japanese rule during the 1940s, the political situation after liberation, and the period of military dictatorship during the 1960s. At the end of Japanese colonial rule, some devices that captured the lives of the Joseon people and endowed specific forms matching their lives which enabled the rule of imperialistic power included ‘public security, gokugo (國語), name (forced name change system), and war (draft and conscription). The political situation after liberation faced the forcible selection of the political slogan,rally, and ideology generated by the confrontation between the left wing and the right wing, which forced the extreme dichotomic selection. In the 1960s and 1970s after the 5.16 military coup, an anti－communistic ideology combined with pariah capitalism, and worked together. This paper aims at Lee Byung－joo’s novels throughout the 1960s to the early 1970s, such as <Magician>, <Yenang Pungmulji>, and <Excuse>beginning from <Novel Alexandria>, and to look into how the destiny of liberalistic intellectuals changed in modern Korean history, what its meaning was, and the past and present meaning of their lives using the concept, namely the device. To Lee Byung－joo, the concept of freedom is very important, and this may be the origin and subject of his writing. To him, freedom equals individualism. In Korean society, which has a history of ordeals, Lee Byung －joo tried to reveal what kind of sacrifice liberalistic individualists had experienced in a form no other than as a novel. This is because he was also liberalist. The hybridism of actuality that it is a concrete historical fact based on the author’s experience of colony and war, namely reality, and fantastic romance shown throughout his novels may be the result created by a closed society and by the notion of an individualist who pursues true freedom while being fully faithful to his/her role and duty as a social individual in that society. Historicity in his novel, that is, actuality, and an individual with a romantic notion do not conflict. The current suppressive situation and the notion and will of a romantic liberalist who dreams of a society in which the life of an individual is rather secured and that such a life may be enjoyed as a liberalist without avoiding such a situation forms connotation and denotation. In this way, there is highlighted the clear contrast between the situation in Korean society and an individual who has been sacrificed, suppressed, and isolated in huge historical incidents.