조선 후기 전란을 기억하는 몇 가지 방식: 전란 소재 야담의 양상에 주목하여

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to divide the narratives of the wars occurred in the late Joseon Dynasty into a few layers of memory in order to reveal their characteristics from a critical point of view. The subjects of discussion are some novellas and Yadam which have been mentioned often. Whilst there had been some discussions of the war narratives of Yadam, the discussions were only limited in the subject of some specific material or a war. However, the war narratives of novellas and Yadam have many correlations which were embodied according to the characteristics of each piece. Thus, this article is focusing on the characteristics and aspects of war narratives of Yadam, which were relatively less discussed. The first subject is the novellas of the wars occurred in the late Joseon Dynasty. In this article, this type is divided into three layers to investigate the overall characteristics. According to the temporal level of memory, it was divided into individual experiences, the elevation of nationalism through heroes, and the realization of Joseon humanism that stimulates tears in order to investigate the aspects of the memories and their limitations. The war narratives of Yadam which share similar materials or narrations could be categorized into return-alive stories, escape stories, and fidelity stories. Each story could be differentiated by its narrative composition, thus the desire and the intention as well. There also were a lot of transitions in the stories even within the same category depending on the period of time written. While the focus is on an individual character itself in Yadam literature, it is more about ‘how’ the character ‘survives’ in war narratives. And the stories also highlight the fact that the war is an inevitable fate. These are the differences from novellas where the characters fight back or overcome the fate, however, they also share similarities in which the stories are of the memories of a survivor. The violence of wars or the responsibilities of nation are often forgotten or even forgiven in the stories. Moreover, the stories of overcoming the wars in the late Joseon Dynasty are often disguised as the desire of the people. Therefore, it is highly suspected that the narratives of the wars in the late Joseon Dynasty are not revealing or accusing the violence of the wars itself but are being used as a justification for maintaining the dynastic society. The war narratives could, of course, take many different ways such as to fight back, to comfort people, or to oppose the war. However, there were not even one piece of the war narratives of the late Joseon Dynasty where the message of opposing the war could be found.