葉石濤를 통해 본 강제된 문명으로서의 식민지 대만과 ‘대만문학’

Abstract

During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), the Japanese colonial government propagated the Imperial-Subject Movement(皇民化運動) to mold Taiwanese people’s unquestioning loyalty to Japan. Taiwanese writers were requested to eulogize the Japanese national spirit. During that period, Ye, Shi Tao(葉石濤, 1925-2008) was involved in a debate in support of Imperial-Subject Literature(皇民文學) and criticized some Taiwanese writers for not actively participating in Imperial-Subject Literature. (1943)After 1990, Ye, Shi tao declared “there is no imperial-subject literature. All are protest literature (1990)”; “seriously my country is Taiwan, but my spiritual home is Japan…… So I think Japan is the home of my heart because my heart is mostly affected by Japan. But it does not mean I like Japanese, my country is Taiwan, which is not changed.” (1999)If we are trying to understand the colonial Imperial-Subject Education(皇民化教育) in Taiwan, where the Taiwanese national consciousness has grown, and its interaction with Taiwan's current national consciousness literature, that is, “Taiwan Literature,” studying Ye will be a good choice for research. This is the study of the colonization of Taiwan, especially how the Japanese colonial government used the binary opposition of civilization and barbarism to persuade the Taiwanese like Ye to accept Japan as a new civilization and to assimilate into Japan. In my opinion, this is a process of “forced civilization.” For Ye, the Japanese and the KMT rule in Taiwan were the same colonial governments, and he was “forced to be Japanese,” and “forced to be Chinese”. Therefore, Ye may have thought Taiwan's future should be based on Taiwanese consciousness; at this point we can understand why he was eager to establish the “Taiwan literature”, and how “Taiwan Literature” plays a key role in his life.