고바야시 다키지의 『게 가공선(蟹工船)』고찰 - 1920년대 일본의 노동조합 결성과 마이너리티 노동자 -

Abstract

This study looks into both the formation of a labor union and the minority workers, buried into the group of laborers portrayed in the novel 『The Crab Cannery Ship』, who were persecuted doubly in Japan during the 1920s. Due to the novel being published during the time of Japanese colonial rule, the novel is relevant to Korean workers who were forcefully mobilized in keeping with Japan's colonial policy. The forced mobilization, in turn, led to the collapse of the Korean agriculture workforce due to the removal of Korean farmers. In『The Crab Cannery Ship』, the workers, who were threatened with harsh punishments, that included lynching, are forced to work under the pretext of a national project. However, the rewards for the harsh labor go to capitalists, while the workers are treated as nothing more than expendables. Intense labor continues until it reaches the limits of human endurance. The true nature of the destroyer (the navy) which considers itself to be the guardian of ‘the Crab Cannery Ship’, the administrators who abuse their power in concert with the capitalists standing behind them, and the capitalists who have a strong belief in the power of money altogether make up the immature capitalistic mechanism created by the nation. After all, it is easily understood that the workers in 『The Crab Cannery Ship』are victims who are exposed to the contradictions and violence of Japanese imperialism and capitalism. The scene of the violence is ‘the Crab Cannery Ship’ itself. However, the novel depicts the plight of both Korean laborers who end up being caught in the harsh conditions of the colonial period, boy workers from the slums of Hakodate, which is a Japanese city internally colonized as part of the Japanese modernization process. These people, as a minority amongst minorities, though they are persecuted doubly, ignore their individual situations and identities and display a distorted form of a human character by burying themselves into a single body of labors.