earticle

영어

Owing to the legacy of Japanese Imperialism, Korea had a shameful past. When two nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender unconditionally during the War in the Pacific in 1945, people in the United States suddenly felt compassion and sympathy for the Japanese due to the explosions and loss of life. Crucially though, internationally, few people are aware of Japanese colonialism and the atrocious acts committed against Koreans. Year of Impossible Goodbyes is a novel about the plight of Koreans during the period of Japanese colonial rule, and the Koreans peoples' yearning for freedom. This paper studies five symbolic icons representing the freedom, identity and pride of Korean traditional culture and history, and examines how the Korean traditional patriarchal system or family system disintegrated because of Japanese colonial imperialism. This paper outlines how the colonial period school curriculum yielded educational products promoting a transition to the communist ideologies of 'Mother Russia' without clearing away the vestiges of Japanese colonialism, and traces the journey of the heroine who comes to the South seeking for freedom from the Russian communists and the Town Reds in the North.