린위탕 소설에서의 유토피아 세계 — 장편소설 『奇島』를 중심으로

Abstract

The Unexpected Island is a fantasy novel that begins when the heroine Barbara⋅Meric accidentally crashes into a small island that is not marked on the map while flying with her fiance Paul, and depicts the future of humans starting in 2004. Laos, like the island's spiritual pillar, argues for the utopian world ideology on the island. And his ideology reminds us of the fact that we, living in scientific rationalism in modern civilization today, need to find a lost utopia. At this point, The main purpose of this study is to re-read Lin Yutang's The Unexpected Island and examine the world of utopia revealed there. Lin Yutang's The Unexpected Island showed that human beings damaged by the mechanized world and scientific rationalism, which has been rediscovered to be integrated with nature, and further indicating that the eastern and western cultures can reach the utopian world through a new process of integration. In particular, the utopia in his works related to the romantic world in that it was embodied as a world oriented toward the past. Therefore, it can be said that the utopia he saw was not a world living coldly in a modernized system and society, but a form of relationship in which you and me, even the world are integrated. Above all, Lin Yutang suggests the importance of utopia in that it wanted to create an ideal community of humans living in a peaceful world where Eastern and Western cultures coexist. From this perspective, a careful observation of the significance of utopia in Lin Yutang's The Unexpected Island can not only urge human beings to reflect on the shortcomings of modernity, but also an important attempt to reflect on its meaning. In addition, Lin Yutang's utopian worldview is thought to open up the research horizon that can expect more active literary exchanges between the East and the West at a global level.