평양의 경향 - 김동인과 최명익의 소설을 중심으로

Abstract

While Kyungsung(경성), a representative city of the colonized Korea, was vulnerable to provincialization as it became modernized, Pyungyang(평양), no less metropolitan than Kyungsung, maintained its originality despite the drastic changes of the colonial era. Due to an ambivalent sense of alienation and superiority it had as a province before colonization, Pyungyang(평양) was less perturbed by its provincialization under the Japanese empire. Building on this observation, this paper investigates how the significance of Pyungyang(평양) as a “de-centered” space contributed to Korean literature under the Japanese empire through the works of two writers from Pyungyang, Kim Dong-In(김동인) and Choi Myung-Ik(최명익). This paper notes the paradoxical sense of freedom and superiority Pyungyang(평양) had as an alienated city. This paradoxical sense of freedom was expressed by their celebration of art free from ideology or complete acknowledgement of their needy situation. Although the autonomy of art championed by Changjohpa (‘창조파’, the creative school) and complete self-contemplation, a creed of Tanchungpa (‘단층파’, the dislocation school), might only lead to isolation, a pseudo-freedom, this paper tries to explore extensive and fundamental meanings of freedom advocated by these schools. This task will be possible when considering that Kim Dong-In(김동인) stressed the function of art as well as its autonomy and that Choi Myung-Ik(최명익) argued for self-contemplation attainable only by way of the Other.