『관촌수필』을 구성하는 기억과 망탈리테

Abstract

The purpose of this study is defining the character of mentalite included in Lee Mun-gu's series novel Gwanchonsupil. Since the novel is mainly comprised of the memories of narrator, this study will look into the definition of memory and explore the effects of synchronic mentalite by tracing the memories of the narrator in Gwanchonsupil. Henri Bergson explained the dynamic essence of memory as the combination of memory image and perception image in Material and Memory. He stated that memory is motility of mind used adequately by preserving entire past and extending it into present moment in the time when life of mind is unfolded. When ontological meaning of memory is conceptualized into recollected image by adequate transformation and distortion based on necessity of the present, the reasonable deduction that images of grandfather and father played by the narrator of Gwanchonsupil must have been described after selective transformation based on practical demand of the present becomes possible. What does the memory reorganized by Gwanchonsupil imply? This study explores the concept toward ‘ontological individual’, which has become a dominant discourse after forming modern and contemporary order in the mid-20th century, by dividing it into mentalite of the new generation and the old generation and identifies the wisdom of ancestors who responded wisely and interdependently at episteme inflection point. The difference in the concept toward ‘ontological individual’ inherent in the two generations becomes an occasion of identifying mentalite which is divided upon shifting from the old generation to the new generation. If it were for image with transformed memory, how should mentalite of grandfather and father organized by the narrator be interpreted? Isn't memory of the narrator an unconsciously intended product? It is natural to question why the narrator embodied them in such a way in Gwanchonsupil. This study examines a part of the cause by reflecting on mindset and mentalite dominant in the 1970s. When looking at the relationship between literature and the society of the 1970s from the realism tendency of Creation and Criticism, the assumption that public literature orientedness by Lee Mun-gu and Changbi was materialized in Gwanchonsupil seems mostly true. Lee Mun-gu and Changbi of the 1970s attempted to revive the 1970s public literature ideology as naturally succeeded tradition by recording the 1970s mentalite as the 1950s mentalite.