전후 작가로서의 김광식과 ‘개인’의 의미

초록

This paper focuses on the works by Kim Gwang Sik as reflective of a “postwar generation” through short stories in the 50s as well as Colony (1963). This article explains the modernist sense of Kim Gwang Sik’s novels in the 50s, which was evaluated as an achievement of the problem of the alienation of modern people and urban novels in the 50s and the meaning of “individualism” consistently revealed in Colony and the short novels. The consciousness of alienation shares the context of postwar existentialism, but in the case of Kim Gwang Sik, it is differentiated in that it is connected with machine civilization and uniformism. House No. 213 and Landscape of Chair, which represent this phenomenon, are placed at the front of the postwar novels, but they seem to embody the author’s experience of Manchuria rather than being a reflection of Korean reality in the 50s. In other words, the technique can be seen as a sense of Manchurian modernity as a reflection of the experiences of studying in Tokyo, working in Manchuria in the late colonial period, working at the Shinkyung Finance Association, and working at Manju Heungup Bank after avoiding becoming a student soldier. This familiar sense of modernism returns to the writer as “uncanny” through the Pacific War and the Korean War. Three postwar situations are projected in the lives and works of Kim Gwang Sik of the student soldier generation. The first is the Manchurian Incident found in Junggangjin, which remains an original horror and trauma for the writer, just like the image of “corpses floating on the Yalu River.” The second is the Pacific War depicted in Colony, which reflects the autobiographical experience of the writer, who avoided being a student soldier and crossed to Manchuria. The writing of this work seems to have been triggered by the 4.19 Revolution, but this work, which was presented in the coercive ideology of nationalism caused by the coup, shows the division between superficial nationalism and deep individualism. This division is represented by Han Dong Sa and Um Young Soo. After liberation, Kim Gwang Sik faces an unfamiliar communist power in his hometown and loses his peaceful daily life in Manchuria and sense of privilege. Kim Gwang Sik, who came to South Korea in 1947, continues his escape due to the third war, which is known as the Korean War. His compulsive damage consciousness expresses several layers of alienation throughout his novels, depicting the postwar poverty reality. This sense of alienation leads to individualism and avoidance of any ideology. This situation reflects the tragedy and skepticism of the student soldier generation, comprising people who had to be reborn as “new people” through three wars. The support held by the colonized subject is not “history and ideology” but a machine, technology, and modernity.

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