경성 골목의 세월 -박태원 [골목안]의 삶과 시대

Abstract

While Pak T’aewŏn’s “Back Alleys” (Kolmok An) is known as a story that depicts the miserable life of the urban lower classes, this paper sought to analyze the gradation of the modern and colonial experiences, which constituted ‘everyday life’ of the residents in Keijo. Through this constitution of ‘everyday life’, the story displays a characteristic recognition on the time during the Second Sino-Japanese War and total mobilization. The narrative of “Back Alleys” describes colonial modern ‘everyday life’ in Keijo as a complex of multi-layered experiences. Alluring commodities like whiskey, a dark and stinky public toilet, notions and practices about love of the sisters (café girl Chŏng’i and high school student Suni) are effectively arranged to show the hybridity of their everyday life and the historical context of ‘matured’ colonial modernity. As this maturity of colonial modernity is linked to the total mobilization regime of that time, Suni’s father, one of the main protagonists who habitually reads newspaper but is alienated from the contemporary situations, tells a false story at the climax. Generating multiple meanings and implications, his story indicates unequality of modernity for the colonized people and the inevitable precariousness of the colonial society.