한국 아동 판타지에 나타난 ‘어린이 나라’ 공간과 유토피아적 상상력의 계보

Abstract

The figurative expression of ‘Children’s Nation’ is the representative rhetoric that allows us to imagine childhood distinguished by time limit as some kind of Nation with a spatial border. The space of ‘Children’s Nation’ described in children’s fantasies satisfies utopia’s two conditions, notional idealness and geopolitical fantasy, at the same time. Korean children’s fantasies like Ju Yoseop’s <Ungcheol’s Adventure> (1937), Lee Wonsu’s <The Nation in the Forest> (1949), or Kim Yoseop’s <The Flying Elephant>(1964) suggested various visions of utopia through ‘Children’s Nation’ while reflecting their own context of reality faithfully. In those works, the space of ‘Children’s Nation’ appears as anti-civilization pure utopia, as an ideological community to be constructed subjectively within the evolving time, or as a beautiful urban republic reflecting our pursuit of advanced civilization in the West. After the 2000’s, however, there was more and more skepticism about modern planning in general, and utopian imagination about ‘Children’s Nation’ withered accordingly. Children’s fantasies more focused on everyday life like dystopia surrounding children and warned that children’s basic space of living, home or school, could turn out to be the most terrible place of despair. Gong Jihui’s <Youngmo has disappeared> (2003), Nam Chansuk’s <Vanishing Children> (2004), Kim Gijeong’s <Neverland’s Missing Child> (2004), or Choi Yangseon’s <The Monster Virus City> (2012) is the typical example of that. Also, along with the change in recognition over children and adults and relationship between fantasy and reality, imagination about ‘Children’s Nation’ is also being dismantled or deformed. We can see the signs of that from children’s short stories written by some of the new authors such as Kim Minryeong and Song Migyeong. In their works, children are described as unknown or alien residents who do coexist in reality but whose accurate address is not registered. It is needed to pay keener attention to how the new discovery of heterotopian children’s space will influence change in children’s literature afterwards.