최남선의 ‘소년’의 기획과 ‘소녀’의 잉여

Abstract

In the cultural history of Korea the birth of ‘Sonyeon’(boy) as a modernsubject naturally connotes the birth of ‘Sonyeo’(girl) as an equivalent. However, in looking into CHOI Namseon's cultural project of ‘Sonyeon’, heseems to have employed ‘Sonyeon’ as a representative signifier that refersto both modern boys and girls who would take upon the task of building of anew independent nation called “Shin Daehan”. Unlike ‘Sonyeon’, ‘Sonyeo’was expected to adapt herself to the pre-modern concept of a man-womanrelationship, that is, ‘a man as a master and a woman as an assistant’. Therefore this essay examines how CHOI Namseon, based upon awestern-style concept of boy, promoted ‘Sonyeon’ as a new modern subjectand imagined a self-reliant symbolic space in the magazine for ‘Sonyeon’. Without being encouraged, ‘Sonyeo’ remained an empty signifier thatwould make little difference in the psychological development of teenagegirls of the early 1900. In the end, this essay aims to suggest that CHOI'smaking of ‘Sonyeon’ as a representative signifer for both boys and girlsserves as one of the critical sources that resulted in the cultural conceptionof a Korean teenage girl as a supplementary being.