현덕 소년소설에 나타난 ‘로컬리티’ 연구 - 1930년대 식민지 조선을 중심으로

Abstract

This paper studies the locality in the juvenile novels by Hyun, Duk, focusing on the Colonial Korea in 1930s. And also it explores locality of the so-called ‘alley’ where the juveniles became independent subjects, away from the protection and control of adults by quarreling with each other and making amends, and the local, as a ‘minority,’ alienated and excluded due to deprived family environment. For this, the paper pursued the meaning of the authority that spatiality has as locality, portrayed in ‘alley,’ the juveniles, the main characters in Hyun, Duk’s novel, transcend spatiality and expands into the cognitive dimension. Furthermore, the paper aimed to discover the fundamental meaning and various values of the human life as the comprehensive concept transcending local characteristics and embracing the environment surrounding the ‘minority.’ Through these levels of study, the paper revealed the fact that the identity of local changes according to the experience and differences of the members, not the essence. In Hyun, Duk’s novel, the juveniles, wandering around the Colonial Korea, which has descended as a local are subjects as outsiders existing outside the modernity that ambivalent global perception, as well as observers introspecting the modern space. Therefore, the juveniles and local are commonly marginal and minor, and for the juveniles, the ‘alley’ is a spatial location to check their existence and a spiritual tool to check their ego-identity. Whereas the school, a modern space to the juveniles in the Colonial Korea in 1930s, transcends the basic spatiality and location, represents the authority that the space holds. Despite the underprivileged situation, the juveniles desire the school and strive to escape from the local through orientation of consciousness based on modern thinking, but their aims are ultimately frustrated by the desire of those around them who promote feudalistic traditions. This is because the juveniles are in the local state as a minority, at a still undeveloped level, before their identities are firmly established.