식민지 청년의 이동과 성장의 임계 - 이태준의 『사상의 월야』와 우줘류의『아시아의 고아』 비교연구

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the logic of self-establishment and existence method of colonized people during the period of empire-colony system. Accordingly, discussion was unfolded for Lee Tae-jun's The Moonlight Night of Thought and Wu, Zhuo-Liu's Orphan of Asia narrating the process of mobility and growth of young man of colonized Josen and Taiwan from a perspective of East Asian comparative literature study. The two novels are a drama of self-establishment of colonized young man the driving force of the plot of the dram is their mobility. In The Moonlight Night of Thought, Lee, Song-bin's mobility for success in life was a process of evolution from barbarism to civilization and from ignorance to enlightenment, as well as a process of entering Tokyo of Japan Empire from rural area of colonized Joseon through Keijo. It compressively shows the aspect and circuit of unilinear mobility of a young man of colonized Joseon. In Orphan of Asia, Hu, Tai-ming's study abroad in Japan and entering the mainland China was also a mobility of realization the desire of success in life. However, their mobility brought paradoxical result of facing oneself as a Taiwanese of colonized Taiwan that he refused to unconsciously face in his fantasy of the desire of success in life. In The Moonlight Night of Thought, science appears as a mechanism of desire of Lee, Song-bin, 'a young orphan man of colony' cloaked in sense of debt and lack of affection, and it functions as the driving force of re-establishing himself based on a conviction that only science can promise him his success. The young man who was cloaked in romantic love through literature is renewing himself as a rational being through science. However, transition from literature to science is not making his growth possible. It is inevitable that the growth of a young man in colonized Joseon was always limited or remained incomplete. In Orphan of Asia, Hu, Tai-ming who continuously desired to overcome his state of deficiency ended up once again facing a state of deficiency in the midst of frustration of such desire. Although he migrated to Japan and China to pursue success in life, he had no choice but to return to Taiwan in the end and he was not able to newly establish himself neither as a Japanese nor a Chinese. The fact that he was ultimately cloaked in madness from the state of self-doubt and self-hatred shows that the growth of a Taiwanese young man of colonized Taiwan was impossible to begin with. The new order and value of empire-colony system amplified a fantasy among colonized young man that their new self-establishment would be possible through self-improvement and growth. However, their growth remained incomplete or in an impossible state. In this sense, mobile narratives=bildungsroman are clearly expressing colonial uneasiness in a symbolic form of modernity of the 20th century East Asia.