‘반난민’적 존재의 정체성 - 이양지의 「나비타령」, 「유희」를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the fundamental division of country and language in the presence of Koreans in Japan by analyzing the process of finding identity that appeared in novels of Yang ji Lee. In addition,through this, the movements of reason which match one’s personal identity with his people and the fundamental exclusivity which is contained in the concept of a “people” were investigated. More than any other Korean Japanese artist, Yang ji Lee fiercely portrayed her in depth search regarding the problem of identity, and studied in Korea to become a “true Korean.”Her experiences acquired through her travels between Korea and Japan and also between Korean and Japanese people were depicted in “Butterfly Taryeong” and “Yu Hui”. The figures in her novel experienced identity confusion between things of Korea and Japan imprinted on their bodies and they tried to clear the targets they perceived negatively so that they could make their body pure Korean or purely identified with their people. At this point, she put items of traditional Korean culture, like the Gayageum in her novel. She tried to make them become “true Koreans” by removing the Japanese things that were imprinted on their bodies through the process of learning traditional Korean culture. However, they experienced this process as a kind of violence and it eventually resulted in failure because Korean Japanese exist in their division of country and language. A painful journey to find identity appeared in her novel as an attempt to conform to one nation ·people·national language, which testifies to the impossibility of attempting of conforming to the violence of modern nationalist thinking and the identity of the individual with a “people.”