임철우 봄날에 나타난 5월 공수부대원 폭력의 감정적 원리 연구

Abstract

There are very few studies of the violence of the airborne troops in 5.18. The number is too small, considering the fact that the investigation on the principle of the airborne troops’ action provides a framework of a comparative interpretation of a similar incident and can become a theoretical contrast to the extreme violence of a group, which may be repeated anytime. this study is based om Lim Chul-Woo’s novel Spring Day intensively explores what emotions the action of the suppression army in 5.18 has as a drive. Especially, this study reveals the process in which they become subordinated to the situational emotions created and forced by the military corps and their identity. the airborne troops tuned each other’s physical rhythm and mental orientation, spending and sharing the same time and the same space and built up emotions, including bonding, solidarity, morality, religious patriotism, narcissistic intoxication, anger and hatred by presuming one symbolic enemy (citizens of Gwangju) in the training that was about to explode. They had a certain bias that the state was in an absolute crisis and that the demonstrators were red, combined with the martial law order to suppress Gwangju, resulting in indiscriminate slaughter. the intensity of the violence intensified as citizens of Gwangju resisted. the hatred, anger, revenge, and resentment of the airborne forces overlapped and amplified, resulting in harsher violence. This is why the airborne troops exercised such extreme violence.