The article “Memories of Youth” may appear to be a straightforward novel, but upon careful reading, several words can be found that contradict the protagonist’s thoughts and actions. The aim of this paper is to provide a new interpretation that can rationally explain the presence of such words.
This work takes the form of a character recalling past events. Therefore, in this paper, we have formulated the following two hypotheses to construct an explanation for the contradictory words in the protagonist’s psychology and behavior:
1. Novels in a reminiscence format are narrated through a filter that justifies oneself.
2. Even with such a filter, the narrator cannot completely conceal what they want to hide.
By establishing these two hypotheses and examining them, we can explain all the words that seem to contradict the context. Words that appear contradictory are those that have passed through the self-justification filter, in other words, words that the narrator failed to hide. These words contain the true feelings that the narrator tried to conceal. By focusing on this aspect, this paper was able to propose a new interpretation that can resolve the contradictions.