전후 일·한 전쟁문학 비교연구 -大岡昇平와 이병구의 전쟁소설에 나타난 南方인식을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This study aims to compare war literature of Japan and Korea that is geographically set in Southeast Asia. More specifically, it will analyze the war novels published in the post-war period by two authors, Ooka Shohei and Lee Byung-ku. While the scenery of Southeast Asia depicted in the works of Ooka and Lee on the one hand elicit different reactions from the protagonists in terms of their perceptions of the situation in which they find themselves and of the conceptual contradictions of life and death, the environments, on the other hand, serve as a medium for both protagonists to come to grips with reality, endeavor to bring about change, and thereby be instilled with the desire for life which they strive to realize. Ooka in his novel describes the native people of Southeast Asia either as ill-fated people who have been thrown into a war started by others and are consequently being deprived of their possessions and dying off, or as “enemies” who threaten the lives of the protagonists left behind as defeated forces. On the contrary, the characters in Lee’s works rarely view the natives as enemies. Instead, they tend to identify with the native population in that they too are part of a colony, and hope to become assimilated with the locals. This is perhaps manifested in the scenes in which they frequently reminisce about their hometowns while being surrounded by all things foreign. The divergent view toward the Southeast Asian natives is attributed primarily to the different backgrounds of the protagonists -- one is a soldier from imperial Japan, while the other is from a colony. Another contributing factor is perhaps the different circumstances confronting Korea and Japan during the period when the novels were being written -- Japan’s post-war regime under U.S. rule, and ideological conflicts and the Korean War that ensued during the post-liberation years in the 1950’s when Korea was struggling to build a national identity.