김말봉의 『찔레꽃』에 드러난 지식인 노동자의 표상과 그 의미 -1930년대 대중소설의 노동자 인식을 중심으로-

Abstract

Popular novels in the 1930s were often consumed for the purpose of escaping reality to forget the hopeless aspects of real society. In particular, 『A Brierrose Flower』 by Kim Mal-bong is a popular work that makes readers feel safe through the realistic situation and misfortune of the characters. This caused 『A Brierrose Flower』 to be criticized as a popular novel, but on the contrary, it also means that 『A Brierrose Flower』 expresses the problems of the contemporary reality well. The main character of 『A Brierrose Flower』 is an intellectual, but it is characterized in that it is closer to workers, and the employment difficulties they face are noteworthy. At that time, the public often defined the intellectual worker problem as the room pen problem, but the employment difficulties of intellectuals in the 1930s were closer to social structural problems. In order to understand why these differences in perception appear, this paper conducted research focusing on Kim Mal-bong’s 『A Brierrose Flower』 and newspaper articles and magazines of the time. In 『A Brierrose Flower』, the unemployment problem experienced by Lee Min-soo seems to be a Lumpen problem, a personal psychological problem. However, Lee Min-soo is portrayed as a realist and confronts Jo Gyeong-gu, who dreams of becoming a rural development association. In addition, idealist Cho Gyeong-gu’s dream is easily frustrated by his father’s opposition, which means that the writer raised Lee Min-soo’s hand among the two, and that the lack of employment of intellectuals was a realistic problem, not a Lumpen problem. The problems experienced by intellectual workers in 『A Brierrose Flower』 appear largely as unemployment and cracks in identity. In the case of unemployment, even though the global Great Depression and ethnic discrimination were problems, the articles at the time pointed out and criticized the indolence of intellectuals. This point has a reasonable aspect, but it seems that the public’s wish for intellectuals to act for enlightenment also had a significant impact. They hoped to become ‘intellectuals as leaders’ through enlightenment, but the economic conditions of intellectuals were not considered. The identity that intellectuals had on their own was also get in the way. Intellectuals were also aware of the fact that they had a higher education, the expectations of their families, and the public's psychology of wanting to be a leader. For this reason, the type of job that intellectuals can choose when looking for a job was limited. In the end, intellectuals chose private tutors as a way to become workers while maintaining their own identities within a limited group of occupations. This was the opposite of Enlightenment in that it sold knowledge for a minority of wealthy people. In other words, private tutors were one of the few options that allowed them to get a job while refuting the public who wanted ‘intellectuals as leaders’.