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The Power of Stories Moving towards the Discovery of the People Spirit : The Novel Gwanchon Supil by Lee Mun-gu

  • The Journal of General Education
  • 2022, (18), pp.351~389
  • DOI : 10.24173/jge.2022.1.18.12
  • Publisher : Da Vinci Mirae Institute of General Education
  • Research Area : Social Science > Education > Field of Education > General Education
  • Received : December 20, 2021
  • Accepted : January 24, 2022
  • Published : January 31, 2022

Oh Chang Eun 1

1중앙대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Lee Mun-gu's Gwanchon Supil, which was published in 1977, is considered an important aesthetic achievement representing Korean novels. Lee Mun-gu lost his father and two older brothers to the Korean War. All of them suffered a tragic massacre for their left-wing activities. From the Korean War to 1980, an anti-human rights system called the guilt-by-association system was implemented in Korean society. The guilt-by-association system was a suppressive mechanism that made it impossible to lead a normal social life if someone in the family was involved in left-wing activities. In the 1970s, Lee Mun-gu entered the path of the anti-dictatorship democratization movement. Lee Mun-gu believed that he could avoid the risk of arrest and detention only if he talked about ‘the issue of his family’s involvement in left-wing activities’. Lee Mun-gu created Gwanchon Supil which considers the courage of 'self-disclosure' and the politics of confession. Gwanchon Supil consists of a total of 8 volumes. Since it has been published for over five years, each novel has a slightly different spatial and temporal background. By examining the composition of space and time f or t he e ight s eries of Gwanchon Supil, the t heme o f the work can be specified. 「Ilakseosan」, 「Hwamusipil」, and 「Haengunyusu」 are the recollections of the narrator who visited Gwanchon Village on January 3, 1972, and have secured narrative homogeneity. With the background of Gwanchon Village, they have a similar format of recalling the past and maintain consistency as a series of novels. 「Noksucheongsan」, 「 Gongsantowol」 and 「Gwansanchujeong」 take a way of reminiscing the past f rom the p resent and depict the wealthy people of Daeboki, Seokgong, Yumanman and Boksan through Gwanchon Village as a medium. The singularity of these series is that the story of the present and the story of the past overlap and form a free flow. 「Yeoyojuseo」 and 「Wolgokhuya」 unfold the current story in a space outside Gwanchon Village. 「Yeoyojuseo 」 critically portrayed the conflict between animal protection and respect for human rights through the character Shin Yong-mo, and 「Wolgokhuya」 embodied the rural reality related to the 4H Movement (Saemaul Movement) from a satirical point of view through Kim Hee-chan as a medium. Yi Mun-gu moved from 'self-disclosure' to 'reflexive perception of reality' and 'active critique of rural reality' during the five-year period of creating the Gwanchon Supil series. The figure of the grandfather appearing in Gwanchon Supil shows the impressive features of the lost Joseon Confucian scholars. The figure of his father, who was a socialist, is carefully hidden. However, in 「 Ilakseosan」, 「Noksucheongsan」, and 「Gongsantowol」, the father gradually takes shape. The speaker reconciles with his father, who has an egalitarian worldview, and affirms his father. Through the image of his grandfather, who had a Confucian worldview, and h is father, who pursued the ideal of egalitarianism, the narrator moves on the path of a ‘popular egalitarian’. In that sense, Gwanchon Supil can be seen as a   narrative of the discovery of the people spirit and a story of becoming the people. Lee Mun-gu has strengthened active self-discovery and social critical awareness in the process of creating novel series of Gwanchon Supil for over 5 years. A t first, the work depicted a n arrative o f careful confession, then it was active self-expression as a victim. Later, he published works that actively defended the egalitarian worldview of the people spirit through becoming the people. Gwanchon Supil contains an e thic o f care a nd a n ethic o f life. T hrough t his work, implications can be found that can connect the possibility of constructing an ecological future society with the restoration of rural communities.

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