유진오의 일본어 문학에 나타난 조선적 가치의 재고 ―일본어 소설 「南谷先生」을 중심으로―

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine how a modern intellectual writer of Chosun, Yu, Jin-oh advanced into Japanese creation in the Chosun literary circle during Japanese colonial era and how he reflected things of Chosun like his identity while writing in Japanese through a Japanese novel 「Mr. Namgok」. While drawing the relationship between things of Chosun and modern culture through the story of the protagonist Sudong and Mr. Namgok, 「Mr. Namgok」 is deriving the value of things of Chosun in it. This novel shows the process of going to a more mental and in-depth domain than his Japanese previous novels. In particular, this novel is thought to have the value of the literary history in that the value of things of Chosun was topicalized literarily in detail in a way of understanding‘Mr. Namgok’depending on the stream of consciousness of characters in the story. In addition, setting Western modernization forced during Japanese colonial era as its counterpart, it urges the rediscovery Chosun’s value and those values are not different from the various aspects of positive traditional culture of Chosun that Yu, Jin-oh tried to convey to Koreans or Japanese readers through ‘Mr. Namgok.’As an educator and lawyer of colonial Chosun, a bilingual writer who is fluent in Japanese as well as Korean and an elite intellectual noted by Japanese authorities as a figure representing Chosun, Yu, Jin-oh can be seen to have internalized the awareness that he is a representative of Chosun by his willingness and external recognition. Thus, in the painful history of Chosun at that time, colonial rule, he tried to defend his identity of a colonial intellectual by elevating positive Chosun representation discourse to the mental area through Japanese language literature.