이기영의 '두만강'에 나타난 집단주의 체제와 유교의 예교성(禮敎性) 고찰- ‘유교적 인간’과 ‘사회주의 인간’의 친화성 고찰 -

Abstract

In this paper, we have investigated the interrelationship between the totalitarian system and Confucian ethics in the Duman River, a saga novel written by Lee Gi-yeong. The characters in the Duman River form a ‘blood community,’and the Confucian ethics is the basis for the totalitarian system of North Korea, which is required for the maintenance of this blood community. In the process of going through ‘the colonial age,’ and ‘the socialist age’ from ‘the feudal age,’ North Korea has never allow modern ‘individual experience.’ The deeper its recognition of the colony, the more impetuously North Korea has accommodated socialism. Based on the authority of Confucian ethics in the previous age, North Korea has given birth to a new power, i.e. socialism. Confucian ethics has a great role in the growth of a socialist man. The affinity between the ‘Confucian man’ and the ‘social man’in the Duman River appears in four forms. First, the characters in this novel consolidate the ‘totalitarian system’ while practicing ‘Jangyuyuseo,’ lit. ‘there is an order between the aged and the young.’ Second, the characters in this novel lead the rural community to unite together through a night school for farmers and farmers’federation, as collective constitutional organizations. Third, the characters’ honest poverty maximizes the virtue of ‘working man,’ and shows hostility toward the haves (or bourgeois), who eat the bread of idleness. Fourth, the formation of ‘farmers (laborers) : the good = the corrupt nobility-(or Imperialist Japan)-bureaucrats : the bad’ actualizes ‘Gwonseonjingak,’ lit. ‘Recommending the good and Punishing the evil,’ of the ethics in the previous age, and justifies the good farmers’ struggle to the evil bureaucrats.