허수경 시에 나타난 전쟁 표상과 생명의식

Abstract

In this paper, I looked at the aspects of anti-war and life-expression through the representations of war that appeared in Heo Soo-kyung’s poetry. To Huh, war is considered an absolute evil and any war is criticized fundamentally. In her poems, strong representations such as “Military boots” and “black soldiers” reveal the absolute nature of violence through the misery of the weak’s life being destroyed by the violence of the strong and continuous trauma. Heo’s anti-war spirit is expressed in a stark way through the damaged physical images of war victims. She emphasizes the unjust violence by highlighting the fact that war kills countless people and sacrifices even the weak, children, women, and the elderly. As a female poet, Huh has a different insight into the relationship between war and women. Her poems evoke the mothers’ strong will to protect life, as well as the feminine values associated with life’s consistency and vitality. Heo Soo-kyung’s poetry continue to have a thread of Korean war literature that is becoming rare as the distance between time and time from the Korean War is getting longer. More important than this continuity, however, is the clear anti-war and life-conscious expression expressed in Huh’s poems. Huh notes the extreme violence that appears in wars throughout the world, not only in the Korean War, but also in wars that continue until now, and clearly shows her willingness to deny and resist to war. Also, her poetry is marked by women’s viewpoint on understanding and criticizing about the masculine and violent nature of war. War literature has often reflected men’s viewpoint, and female poets are not just in the opposite position. Heo’s poetry has special meaning to remind women of the damage they suffer as objects of war and highlight the value of the reversal they hold. It is also notable that Huh’s poetry shows the logic of rebutting the traditional view that war has been rationalized as a natural phenomenon. In her poetry, war is represented as an act of extreme destruction, which is anti-natural and anti-life. Heo Su-kyung’s achievements are huge in that she is discovering newly the role of women to protect human nature and lives against war.