The Outer Layer of Turtle Ship and the Inner Side of ‘Nanjung Ilgi’ : Focused on ‘Dong-a il-bo’ and Yi Kwang-su in the summer of 1931 This study focused on the fact that recent studies that make heroes of historical figures have become overly concentrated on critical discussions based on political, ideological, and historical assessment of specific characters and thus pay little attention to the problematic points of ‘modern media, narrative, and principal agent,’ which form the mechanism of hero-making. Thus, this study attempted to empirically reveal the places surrounding the historical incident of the Yi Sun-sin hero-making campaign to draw out multiple socio-cultural and cultural meanings that lie underneath the surface. The hero-making of Yi Sun-sin, which started in 1931 with newspaper articles used as a catalyst, was possible in an era with modern newspaper media, modern novel writers, a class of readers, and a government that either overlooked or supported this phenomenon. This study focuses on media, narrative, and genre to examine how the hero-making of Yi Sun-sin became a nationwide campaign and to observe the core content of the Yi Sun-shin narrative and the course of forming the narrative method. The following presents the critical discussions that this study examined surrounding the media, narrative, and principal agent. First, the modern newspaper media integrated ‘article, literature, and campaign,’ which epitomized ‘fact (narrative), fiction (narrative), practice (project)’ respectively to lead the national hero-making movement of the historical figure. The hero-making project of Yi Sun-sin, which was carried out by Dong-a il-bo and Yi Kwang-su in the summer of 1931, plainly shows that how driving force and literary imagination of modern journalism could generate collective commitment, which was aroused among the public at the time. The newspaper stirred up public interest through the so-called extra/exclusive reporting and national donation campaigns. The characteristics of such media and genre also influenced the hero-making of the historical figure. Second, the historical approach of narratives related with Yi Sun-sin displays the method in which the character narrative is composed and spread, and depicts the dynamic relations between historical, literary, and narrative forms. Character narrative is an appropriate genre for examining the union formed between modern novels and other genres and forms. The transformation of Yi Sun-sin narratives from the biography written by Sin Chea-ho into the novel by Yi Kwang-su involved not only formative changes but also variations in content and emphasis. Free from chronological narrative, modern novels display the inner side of the agonized individual. Such characteristics magnified the feeling of loneliness and the ethical superiority of Yi Sun-sin through the general arrangement of the ‘turtle ship’ and Nanjung Ilgi. The two factors above, which were firmly established by Yi Kwang-su’s novel written from the Yi Sun-sin character narrative, are becoming the core elements of the Yi Sun-sin narrative, which is still being created in the present day. Yi Kwang-su is known as the first writer to write a modern full-length novel. Third, it is important to closely observe the character of the principal agents that supported or exercised caution regarding the narrative of Yi Sun-sin, who is the hero of the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592. The differences in stance and practice cannot be wholly shown merely through the competition structure that dualizes the collective identity of colonial Chosun and Japan when conducting research on Japan’s colonial period. It is essential to observe different opinions regarding the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 and the hero-making of Yi Sun-sin between the Japanese government, the Japanese Government-General of Chosun, Japanese people in Japan, Japanese settlers in Korea, and even members within each group. This will serve as a historical reference point for reflecting on the present reality, where national hero-making is still being carried out.