자본주의로 인해 해체되어 가는 농촌의 생활상 ‒ 히라바야시 다이코의 「야풍」을 중심으로 ‒

Abstract

This paper seeks to inquire into the destitute farm life and women’s miserable lives by the introduction of capitalism into even the farming areas after Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War through an examination of “Night Wind,” one of Daiko Hirabayashi’s earlier works. Independent farmers who had been living an ordinary life on their farms before the advent of capitalism became tenant farmers instead, having sold their farms due to an insufficiency of funds children’s educational costs and living expenses in a newly transformed social structure. Landowners who had bought up the tenant farmers’ land for a low cost wanted to resell them to others so that they could quickly rise as capitalists. For this purpose, they raised the tenant farmers’ farm rent very high and led them to give up on farming. But the tenant farmers who could not give up on farming, worked in factories ever in their leisure hours and even young women had no choice but to work in factories with poor working conditions. married women were often advised to have abortions when they became pregnant because of a lack of food and labor power. The character Osen who had gotten pregnant in an extramarital affair became the target of her brother’s wrath, who was frustrated with society. Likewise, such women who were being abused in the rural areas in this transitional period are depicted in Hirabayashi’s work.