The Narrative of Post-Childhood and Memories of Food : Study on the Symbolism of Food in Korean Postwar Formation Novels

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the formation novels written in the 1960’s and 70’s after the Korean War, focusing on the symbolism of food that appears in varied forms. Many symbols related to food and the action of eating it could be understood as a system of signs that carry various meanings. The symbolism of food and the action of eating it in a novel is expressed in combination of various aspects of parole in semiotics such as concrete situations, characters, and context. Lee Mun-Gu and Lee Dong-Ha share the same background in that they were born at about the same time and experienced the war and wrote actively in the chaotic time after war. That could be explained in the colonial economy and exploitation under Japanese rule and full-scale destruction of the economic system due to the Korean War, but as we saw in Gwan Chon Essay, it is also due to the psychological and cultural deficiency following violent modernization. In the novel Toy City by Lee Dong-Ha, the sense of loss in people who left their hometown, and the shallowness of city life are more vividly described. The symbol of food in modern Korean novels has been marked as having a negative meaning. Experiencing poverty and violence due to the war, and being introduced to modern civilization armed with individualism and the monetary economy, modern society seems to have gradually lost the tradition of consideration for other people. The mutually benefiting community of the past has now collapsed and the young people who remained in the agricultural areas set their minds towards the modern capitalist society that presses for results.