얄개의 탄생 혹은 냉전문화 텍스트를 구성하는 동아시아 후기식민지적 역사성에 대한 문화분석 : 조흔파의 1950년대 초중반 소설 및 번역서를 중심으로

Abstract

Jo-Heunpa had gained great popularity in war-torn South Korea for his unique humor-Myeongrangsosul based on cultural affluence and relaxation. In the 1950s, his cultural activities responded to the Americanization of South Korea, which began to be incorporated into the Cold War order. His masterpiece, “Yalgaejeon” is the crucial evidence text that he was a south Korean elite who contributed to the proliferation and localization of cultural Cold War in the formative age of the east Asian Cold War system. The narrative of “Yalgaejeon” consists of two major forms of expression: humorsosul, based on colonial age’s popular literary accomplishments; 19th century American children’s literature representing bad boy written by Mark Twain and Thomas Bailey Aldrich. The plot of this sosul seems to represent the tendency toward Americanization, disconnected from the colonial era between Chosun and South Korea. However, the style of expression of “Yalgaejeon” is clearly in line with colonial historicity; two major forms of expression, representation method of bad boy and humor in narrative style, are derived from the Jo-Heunpa’s personal taste for Sasaki Kuni, an English scholar and a popular writer in Japan. “Yalgaejeon”’s narrative centers around two major axes: Yalgae, the new generation of south Korea in the 1950s, who carries out an era break; professor Na, the South Korean leader of incompetent older generation. The form of the expression of humorsosul performs a function of exclusion that the top elites have had historical responsibility and the new generation, Yalgae, is popped up at the front of plot. This is a narrative strategy, disavowing the responsibilities and accountabilities of the South Korean elites regarding the historicity of East Asian colonial-empire age, by utilizing Cold War order in the 1950s. Such sealed historical responsibilities lead to the future prospects for national reconstruction projects in return the internal logic of the defensive mechanism, which makes a fetish of liminal being.