Locality Shown In The Literature Of Lee Hyo-seok

The study in this paper is mainly about one of the many features that were shown in the literature of Lee Hyo-seok,the Locality.The rural area which Lee Hyo-seok described is not only the space that contains the purity of nation before it was contaminated by the outlanders,but also the space that was made from envy of western civilizations by returning to the unknown,the imaginary hometown through his life and literature in colonial era.Although it was not shown on the surface,his recognition of loss of hometown caused by loss of sovereignty,and his inner world haunted by nostalgia of lost hometown are all repeatedly shown in the imagery of people that are clearly the projection of the author himself.Mr.Heo from「When Bucketwheat Flowers Blossom」,Jung-sil from 「The Mountain」,and Hak-bo from 「The Field」 can be a good example.The reason why this study is focused on locality is because the discourse about rural area itself is considered to be included in something nostalgic’ with the point of view that tries to find today’ s criteria from the past and believes it can substitute the deficiency.Nostalgia is the attitude that is placed in the experience of loss and longs for the politic of restoration and recovery.The study focused on the fact that with this point of view,fundamentally,nostalgia is not a yearning for the past,but is yearning for the future;therefore,the rural area is a future place that is found by the modern nostalgia.Lee Hyo-seok once said when he is talking about his tnostalgia’ it is not only about his ’hometown’.It implies that nostalgia is somewhat more comprehensive and fundamental than that.It is memorable that he once said nostalgia is about something that his heart can settle and be pined for.forever.In Chapter 2,the study analyzes his life and the colonial modern era which he lived in.It also researches the meaning of nostalgia and 30’ s discourse about rural area.The era he lived and die was(1907 1942)colonial era.All the Koreans had to change their nationality,and they were banned from using their own language,they also had to follow Japanese law,not theirs.For them,their hometown is not what it used to be,it changed from the place where they born to the place that belongs to out landers.It was the time when Korea experienced ’modern era’as the colony of Japanese empire.The modern colonial era is often perceived as the era of Japanese empire’ s exploitation and colonization on Korea,and it is common to address that era as "the biggest hardship in the history of Korean literature".However,with these kinds of perceptions,it is hard to have complete understanding of modern colonial era,and the work of Lee Hyo-seok,which considered as one of the artistic projections of modern colonial era,cannot be fully explained.In general,two concepts,"Colony”and "Modern" are hard to coexist,but it is also quite difficult to deny the fact that many non-western nations experienced colonization in early 20th century.As for Korean,modern era was nothing more than colonial era,and just another name of age of Imperialism.Therefore,this chapter will discover what meaning does the Lee Hyo～seok’ s locality had in modern colonial era,and what role it had as the concept that represents the era.In chapter 3,the paper studied the aspects of the locality through five of his works.First,through 「When Bucketwheat Flowers Blossom」,the paper discovered the hometown Lee Hyo-seok tried to describe was not a real hometown,but the spiritual hometown which he made up,and can rest on forever.Those imaginary hometowns were made up to overcome his loss that was caused by the trauma,and it can only be perceived when it separated from the real hometown.In other words,those imaginary hometowns are made up in some other imaginary space as the alternatives to get healed from what really happened in real hometown.This study tends to find out the consciousness that lies beneath the author’ s mind.Then,the study continues to find locality in 「The Mountain」 and「The Field 」.In these literatures,hometown shows the perfect and ideal type of nature.The paper studied and analyzed the difference in main character’ s attitude towards their lives.Those two literatures seem quite similar,but they have different meanings inside,therefore,the study was about Joong-sil from 「The Mountain」 and Hak-bo from 「The Field」,and finding out what dreams do they have in their hometown through examining their attitudes toward nature.Lastly,the feature of locality in 「The Gorge」 and 「The wild Apricot」was focused on.The whole town in those literatures was an imagery of one family.The lives in the town mimic the form of a family,which means,it is possible to look through their lives as the town people.The aspects of rural areas such as patriarchal violence,traditions in rural area,farming,folk religion,bartering are beautifully and poetically described through Lee Hyo-seok’ s unique style if writing.Korean farming culture which is based on traditional agricultural societies and patriarchy shows its.cultural uniqueness since it is quite different from western farming culture.