초록 열기/닫기 버튼
While many novels are mixed with memories, especially important are‘memories’ in Lee Byeong-ju’s novels. Most of his novels have memoriesas their root, which work as core key words in the reconstruction ofhistory, for Lee perceived and had insight about history through hisexperiences while he was in hardship at every historical moment. Having been through the ordeal of the times with his body, Lee recallshis memories of historical experiences into his novels to show a gapbetween his private memories based on arche-experiences and officialhistory conventionalized by the collective memories. Furthermore, byplacing certain figures hidden between lines of history in the center ofnarratives, he give shape to historical facts which are forgotten by theofficial history. As such, Lee’s ‘awareness of history,’ with which he triesto recover the eliminated and abandoned history through the dialectic ofmemory and forgetfulness, appears in the relationship among theexplication of the past, the present, and the vision of the future, exploresthe positive meaning of the reality it has, and is the basis for recordingthe contemporary history. Consequently, this article tries to examine the aspects of the depictionof history about the colonial period with focus on Lee Byeong-ju’snovels Gwanbu Ferry and Excusesby integrating history into the great frame of memories. In addition, it should be noted that the two novelsGwanbu Ferry and Excuses have been selected as subject texts becauseit is believed that they intensively deal with the colonial periodcompared with other novels that have historical facts as their subjectmaterials.
