역동하는 섬의 상상력 -오키나와‧타이완‧제주 소설에 나타난 폭력과 반(反)폭력의 양상-

Abstract

This paper was intended to look at works that capture the history and reality of three East Asian islands that were placed in the middle of massive violence in the mid-20th century. It emphasized how the aspects of anti-violence was represented through literary imagination as a response to the problems of violence exercised by the empire and the state during the Battle of Okinawa, Taiwan’s 228 Incident, and the Jeju 4.3. The works that it focused on are Kerama Is Visible [慶良間や見いゆしが Kerama Ya Miiyushiga] (2013) by Japanese novelist Oshiro Sadatoshi (大城貞俊; 1949∼), “The Small Chronicle of Huang Su” [黃素小編年 Huang Su Xiao Biannian] (1983) by Taiwanese writer Lin Shuangbu (林雙不; 1950∼), and The Knife [도마칼 Domakal] (1985) by Jeju writer Ko Si-Hong (高時洪; 1949∼). The authors mentioned above are post-war generation writers who were born around the same time, and as natives to the respective islands, were put under the direct influence of the post-war situation since childhood. Kerama is Visible is a novel that is centered around a woman and her husband, both survivors of military-forced civilian mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, who eventually end up committing suicide when they reach their late 80’s. Through the series of suicides by the elderly couple, it shockingly proposes that the war did not come to an end, but that it continues to be tightly adhered to reality. “The Small Chronicle of Huang Su” takes place during the 228 Incident about a falsely arrested bride-to-be, and the shock of being released just before the execution leading to her complete destruction. The Internal resistance of not being able to accept the massive violence by the state in any given situation is symbolically read through the text. The Knife deals with the situation of a woman, whose husband went missing after the Jeju 4.3, and how his return 25 years later drives her into complete madness. Not only does it emphasize the fact that the scars of the Jeju 4.3 is actually getting deeper instead of healing, it is also throwing in the message of the Jeju people’s resistance through the act of a woman wielding a kitchen knife. The three works presented the issue of violence by the empire and power in an extreme way, through situations where daily necessities like a knife and a sickle transform into tools of gruesome murders or weapons of intimidation. This is a method of reacting to the massive violence by the powerless public, and that the imagination of anti-violence appeared as an aspect in maximization of suffering. They also all have in common that they dynamically portrayed the fact that the brutal violence that exploded in the past remains unchanged. Emphasizing the identity of a local community by using dialects or proverbs can also be seen as an aspect of anti-violence.