A Study on Hakyoung Kim’s Viewpoint of Novel: Focused on His Essay Traces of Dreams

This study examined Hakyoung Kim’s essay titled Traces of Dreams and his other works to find his unique viewpoint of novel in his works. In his novel titled the Light of Winter, Hakyoung Kim used a technique of depicting his motifs – stammering, parental discord, and Zainichi – with causal relationships and organically connected relationships. In his follow-up novel titled A Chisel (鑿), went further and depicted the anger that the weak feel, and the sorrow of those who have to live being treated with contempt. In Traces of Dreams, his own problems, beyond the tragedy of blood, were approached as universal problems of human beings. Hakyoung Kim wrote the novel from the viewpoint of ‘dreams that are seen with the eyes open’ to protect life from ‘ominous stimuli’ that drive people to death. To him, conceptualizing real problems and plotting a fiction were effective to ‘protect his life and solace the mind.’ He insisted on the world of I-novels and problems associated with ethnicity. At the same time, he did not ignore universality, and kept writing about the sorrow of those who are alienated, which shows his unique point of view.