‘87년 체제’와 지연된 전향의 완수－1980∼90년대 김원일, 이문구, 이문열 소설의 변화를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper was written to reconstruct the effects of the ‘87 Regime’ on the collective mentality of Koreans and the genre rules of modern Korean novels by tracking the changing aspects of the novels of Kim Won－il, Lee Moon－gu, and Lee Moon－yeol before and after the establishment of the 87 Regime. As is well known, Kim Won－il, Lee Moon－gu, and Lee Moon－yeol are Birth cohorts in the 1940s who experienced the Korean War as a child, and are the family of guilt－by－associates system with communist as their fathers. Their contradictory collective identities, combined with ideology, blood ties, and birth dates, are developed under the ‘Cold War－division’s system’ and the discourse of the developmental state as a mindset and a rule of conduct that make survival absolute. Second－generation writers of communist were forced to start writing novels in a tense relationship with the repressive state apparatus due to their contradictory identities. These conditions can be said to be ‘regime of the heart’ that decided the form and content of their novels before the 87 regime. In the works of Kim Won－il, Lee Moon－gu, and Lee Moon－yeol before the 87 regime, various rules of transformation are identified that delay the display of the contradictory identity problem that made them choose to write a novel. These rules of transformation are inevitable choices to ensure the survival of the artist himself and his work in response to the threat and contempt of the repressive and ideological state apparatus, and are also the criteria for genre discrimination that distinguishes fiction from non－fiction. These rules of transformation, which restrain the entire genre of modern novels and broadly literature, provided a paradoxical space of freedom for these writers who had to work with strong consciousness of the objects of instruction in the real world. In this sense, it can be seen that their novel writing until the 87 regime was a kind of dream－work that compressed and displaced the suppressed desire. The 87 regime was a turning point in the historical horizon, when the tension between these writers and repressive and ideological state apparatus was rapidly resolved. Family of guilt－by－associates system were finally able to return to the(South Korea) national identity in the midst of democratization and the end of the Cold War. But the problem arose in their novel. This is because the ‘Cold War survivalism’, which had determined the content and form of their novels before that time, lost its status as the last instance with the 87 regime. The contradiction of identity was a practical condition that placed tension on their novels and allowed them to secure a sense of psychological solidarity with the audience. The 87 regime brought catastrophe to their novels by dissolving ‘Cold War Survivalism－last instance’ and at the same time dismantling the conditions for the original creations given to these writers. And it is a tentative conclusion of this paper that this catastrophe is a matter of being linked with the collective mentality of Koreans and the long tradition of Korean modern novels.