역사적 진실과 문학적 재현 - 팀 오브라이언의『숲의 호수에서』와 황석영의『무기의 그늘』을 중심으로

Historical Truth and Literary Representation

&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper examines In the Lake of the Woods an American writer, Tun O&quot;Brien in comparison with Shadow of Arms written by a Korean Hwang Suk-Young. O&quot;Brien is a Postmodern writer among many Vietnam War story writers while Hwang Suk- Young is an author faithful to the realist principles. Both write about My Lai Massacre in their stories, which is one of the most infamous massacres perpetrated by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. In the massacre, it is known that about 500 civilian Vietnamese, including women and children, were killed by American soldiers.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The same incident turns into completely different ones through the two writers&quot; texts. In Hwang&quot;s pastiche of the court martial record and other documents, the incident is represented as a result of atrocity committed by merciless American soldiers. On the contrary, when O&quot;Brien writes about the same massacre, American soldiers are described as ordinary people who were once driven into aimless killing by frustration the war inflicted on them and by their anger towards the Vietnamese, who were often collaborators of Viet Congs.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;To the Koreans, the war was viewed as a product of American imperial, expansionist desire. On the contrary, the war was an obscure, complex and confusing war to American soldiers where they were certainly not heroes but the same victims as soldiers of other nationality. Therefore, O&quot;Brien describes the American soldiers in the massacre as ever suffering from the memory of the massacre.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Both texts contain pieces of unrelated episodes. The reportage fragments may be termed &quot;history&quot; because they are not the products of a writer&quot;s imagination but a historical record. Both writers clip historical documents and collate them into their stories. However, in O&quot;Brien&quot;s work, the main story line is not interrupted or damaged by inserted fragments. Rather, these fragments function as foils to reflect the main story, adding dramatic effects. The main narrative story and heterogeneous reportage fragments increase each others&quot; effects. Given that history is no more privileged than other stories, the same historical incident is open to several different interpretations and representations.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The difference between the two texts stems; not only from the differences in the two writers&quot; perspectives on the war, but also from the difference of the two narrative techniques. Differently from Hwang whose collage technique gained little artistic effect. O&quot;Brien effectively employed the multi-layers of postmodern narrative technique to portray the intrigue of human nature and the obscure nature of the Vietnam War.