이인직 소설과 미국의 재현 양상

Abstract

This Study will try to grasp his standpoint toward America, by analyzing <Tears of the Blood>(혈의 누, 1906) and <The Silver World>(은세계, 1908) of Li, in-jik, a representative writer of the Enlightened age. The international situation of the those days was a deconstruction of the Eastern order that had held China, and a grasp on hegemony of Japan. And The Western Powers adhered to imperialistic expansionism and the open-door policy. Korea of the Enlightened age was an arena of exchange and competition of the World Powers. The subjects of the Enlightened age who lost those identity with the past experienced a expansion of the world beyond china, Japan, Russia, England, Germany, America etc. The characters of novels of the past came and went only the heavens, ground and underground, but the characters of the new-style novels live in real world, Japan and America etc. Their longing for Western civilization and studying abroad was a reflection of their concern about the World State that is not limited to China. Li, in-jik who had written <Tears of the Blood> and <The Silver World>, which repeated a then dominant discourse of America, misunderstood a geographical feature of America, and regarded it as the model state of civilization and as an alternative of Korea. Judging from this, Korea of the Enlightened age functioned as a space where reproduced and circulated uncritically the Orientalism. The representations of America that Li, in-jik accepted and described are also reappeared by the present novelists. The vertical hierarchy of the culture between America and Korea operate powerfully today. By looking lasting influence of social-historical phenomenon, one is faced with a problem, a mission of intellectuals. The Self-reflection of Being is a way which can prevent future possible mistakes.