유치진 희곡에 나타난 식민지조선의 일상과 그 의미

Abstract

This paper is aimed at analyzing three plays, Soo, Jesa, Jame which were published in 1936 in terms of everydayness in colonial Joseon and revealing the change of creative methods in Yu Chijin’s realistic plays and its meaning with the results. Yu Chijin went to Tokyo in March 1934 and returned home in May the following year. He performed Binminga in Sam-Ill Theater, the work in pursuit of popularization of proletarian theater, but soon after he watched the fall of Japanese proletarian plays. He predicted that it would be impossible to perform proletarian plays in colonial Joseon and would be difficult to perform plays because of intensified censorship of authorities. The situation in the Korean theater world worsened more than expected, so he could not but try new methods of creating realism plays. The three works published in 1936 depicted various everyday lives of colonial Joseon. In Soo, the life of a poor working family who are being driven to death is shown. Jesa treats the woman’s life who is sacrificed by the conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and Jame deals with sisters’ sorrows who are experiencing marital difficulties in the change of social conditions. These works looked like separate ones were consistent, in that these works had captured the point of conflict between modern and premodern values. The characters in these works are in problematic situations but they have something in common that their consciousness does not change much. Since these three works needed realistic stage settings and actor’s acting, they were not deviating from Yu Chijin’s realistic tendency. But the change in material was remarkable in that he captured everydayness of colonial Joseon in these works, which told us that his perception of realism had changed. Yu Chijin wanted to show the audience the characters themselves in various problematic situations precisely to make them ‘feel’ something, being out of the position to ‘convey’ his argument to the audience through the change of characters. These three works can be called as the drama of manners. It is significant that Yu Chijin provided the clue of Singeuk popularization with these three works. He encouraged the audience who were used to commercial plays to visit the theater of Geukyesulyeonguhoe with various materials and soft contents. It should be appreciated that Yu Chijin begun a challenging experiment for theater popularization, though he knew the danger that the drama of manners could be considered as ‘modern Sinpageuk.’