‘교환’되는 여성의 몸과 불가능한 정착기 -장해성의 『두만강』과 김유경의 『청춘연가』를 중심으로

Abstract

This study analyzes novels on North Korean defectors’ exodus process and settlement in South Korea. Since the mid-1990s, novels which describe them or directly written by themselves based on their experiences have often appeared in the literary world of South Korea, along with rapid increase of the number of them.From these novels, the process in which heroines from North Korea undergo sufferings such as human traffic and prostitution, and then are immigrated into Korea via China, is commonly found. The narrative of escape from North Korea primarily shows stories of heroines because their ‘bodies’ have convertibility in the structure of capitalism. North Korean women defectors cross the border by placing their ‘bodies’ at the position of product in the ‘M (money) - C (commodity) - M (money)’ structure of capitalism. This is not only real life-risking escape, but also desperate exchanges of bodies regarded as ‘commodity’. In the novels, they are sold to China through human traffic and prostitution conducted in ‘Jangmadang’, a space for exchange between commodity and money. However, North Korean women defectors are again involved in human traffic or face death suddenly. Thus, they often fail to achieve successful ‘settlement’ in South Korean even after immigration. From such an impossibility of the settlement, it is thought that stop of exchange means the death in the ‘M C M’ structure. They should continuously take part in the exchange or they face the death if they quit it. Their narratives cannot be regarded as mere stories of a specific group, since their sufferings show the process in which global capitalism system commodity women’s bodies. Moreover, failures of their settlement exhibit the process in which political refugees become economic ones. Thus, the narrative of escape of North Korean may represent an aspect of economic minority mass-produced by global capital.