<조선동화집>(1924)의 인물형상과 이데올로기

Abstract

Between 1916 and 1921, Danaka Umekichi(田中梅吉 1883-1975) collected relevant materials by way of government offices and schools across Joseon while serving as a commissioned worker for the Japanese Governor General of Korea. The editing department of the Educational Bureau under the Japanese Governor General of Korea published Anthology of Korean Fairy Tales based on Danaka’s report in 1924. 25 works in Anthology of Korean Fairy Tales are somewhat different from typical folk tales and are largely changed and reorganized by the author. The heroes in the works have the following common characteristics. First, the heroes are in a condition of abject poverty. Second, the heroes are kind, family-oriented and infinitely faithful and serve as exemplary models for the people. Third, matters surrounding the heroes are resolved at once with the help of a spiritual being, which is moved by the hero’s benign personality. The author of Anthology of Korean Fairy Tales strongly stresses instructive lessons in the process of resolving problems and conflicts between the characters, as if doing so was a driving force for his writings. Good virtues identified in those tales include “good heart, good deed, compassion, alertness to greed and wickedness, faithfulness, family love, filial piety, brotherhood, gentleness, kindness and gratitude.” Good virtues are universal love for the mankind and consistent with the Confucian values in a traditional society. But, unlike the other traditional virtues, virtues such as ‘mildness’ and ‘kindness’ are close to the Japanese values in a modernized country. The enlightening attitude may draw much criticism because it hurts vivid descriptions in fairy tales and damages the ‘liveliness,’ ‘independence’ and ‘active view of life’ for children to pursue under a modern capitalistic regime. Under the Japanese colonial rule, the civilization of children was performed through producing literary texts and conducting school education, as they desired. In the 1910s and the 1920s, the editing department of the Educational Bureau under the Governor General of Korea collected folklore materials such as tales and riddles and converted them into fairy tales in textbooks, solely for the purpose of disparaging the national cultures of Joseon and disseminating colonial ideologies. Anthology of Korean Fairy Tales was closely connected to school education in the colony. Joseon fairy tales were possibly used as literary materials in elementary schools in Joseon so as to achieve such educational goals as producing meek and mild children, subjects in a colony of refined and imperialistic Japan.