『국민문학』좌담회의 양가성과 발화게임

Abstract

I make a study on the round-table talks which appeared in the journal Kookmin Moonhak. My main focus is on the transitional processes from the ruler-subject opposition to the empire-province opposition and the two-facedness in the assimilation and dissimilation reflected in the series of table talks. In the early 1940's, literary men made plans for table talks but they had no power to detach themselves from empirical powers and couldn't help holding to the forms of table talks, the product of imperial system. They conspired with Japanese imperialists through them but inwardly they made efforts to free themselves and to create new discourses different from the imperialists' intent by playing on word in a subtle way. First, I characterize the powers operated by the imperialists in the 1940's, their effects like break-ups between Koreans caused by the announcement of the new constitution and the table-talks held in the Japanese language by force. Secondly, I investigate the issues raised by the participants in the table-talks when the imperialists tried to unify the Japanese and Korean peoples under the name of naesunilchae (the Unification of Japan and Chosun). The issues were involved with the questions whether the movement of unification was abolishing the racial discrimination and promoting the real equal right. Table-talks played a partial role in causing national sentiments. Thus they led the colonists to make an appeasement policy or assimilate themselves with Koreans. Thirdly, I found out that the table-talks awakened the national pride. For example, Choe Jai-Suh pronounced that Koreans should create literary works in the Japanese language in order for the provincial (that is, Korean) culture to have an influence on the literary world in Tokyo and in other provinces like Philippines, China, Manchuria and others. Finally, the power within itself cannot see what it is like to be outside power. The power failed in changing itself at that time. Such failures reflected in Kookmin Moonhak were related to the failures in properly translating Korean into Japanese, in fully misunderstanding the subtle nuances expressed by word play, in transmitting Korean cultures to the literary world in Tokyo and in unifying two peoples. They paradoxically lead us to understand what it is to be in outside.