‘유관순’을 호명하는 몇몇 시선과 목소리

Abstract

This thesis attempted to shed light on the process and causes that made Ryu Gwan–Sun, who was barely known during the time of the March 1st Independence Movement, rise as a national hero who represents patriotism, resistance, and sacrifice after the liberation. Called a ‘sacrificial maiden’, then ‘older sister’, and then ‘patriotic martyr’, Ryu Gwan–Soon takes position as an example for the mobilization of people needed in making a new nation and the national education needed for that. This article examined this process with the following order. First, it observed the process in which she was shaped into a ‘well-made hero’ who fulfills nationalistic ideologies and thoughts by observing poetry, stories, biographies (biographical writing) and songs, and life writings about Ryu Gwan–Soon. Second, it established a research method under the premise that, under the perspective that biographical writing is ‘an autobiography written by another person’, the statement of enlightenment as the writer wishes to pass on to the reader and the historical transitions for that are just as important as the truth of the story. Elements of ‘the story of Ryu Gwan–Soon’ in relation to this were extracted as follows. First, it focused on the fact that the heroic appearance of Ryu Gwan–Soon was given shape through Joan of Arc and the integration with Christianity. However, Joan of Arc was praised as a ‘modern woman of patriotism’ in the modern enlightenment period and as ‘a woman of a nation at war’ by allies of the late Japanese imperialist system and then she was reestablished as a sacred patriot in connection with Ryu Gwan–Soon after the liberation. Second, the process of which Ryu Gwan–Soon became a hero, which can be connected with sacrifice and reward, was observed through the key phrases of ‘damage to the body’ and ’the location of the dead body’. The provisional conclusion made here is that the emphasis of the femininity of Ryu Gwan–Soon became a paradoxical sanctification of her death which heightened her sacred character and nationality. On one hand, examinations were made of how Ryu Gwan–Soon stories and songs in Korean Language(『국어』) and Music (『음악』)textbooks take root in the inner worlds of students in their growth periods through the transitional process of textbook contents and through associations with illustrations. Lastly, observations were made of two processes of conflict, opposition, and compromise between the military regime and the people surrounding the textbook contents of the story of Ryu Gwan–Soon. These issues were the June 3rd situation of the 1960s and textbook content distortion issues of the 1980s which were caused within relations with Japan, the principal agent which colonized Korea in the past. Here, it is confirmed that Ryu Gwan–Soon was a figure who could not avoid her destiny of becoming a political and ideological symbol and nationalistic representation.