탈주와 회귀의 미국 이민 서사 - 박완서 소설을 중심으로 -

Abstract

Park Wan-seo’s novels faithfully reproduces the reality of hometown escape that the character is living at present starting from the hometown. When expanding it to the US immigration narration, Park’s novel clearly reveals the problems in Korea while focusing on the immigration reason and settlement process of characters. His novel shows Korean-American’s identity building through the characters of escape and return. Unpatriotic persons excluded from the Korean society such as alleged communists, proletarian, and foreigners’ whore dream of the immigration to US because they cannot adapt to the Korean society in spite of the will to survive or desire for stability. Rebellious nonstationary cannot immigrate to US and low-class, proletarians, prepare for the employment immigration dreaming the American dream after time to be parasitic on US soldiers ends, but it fails. A character, foreigners’ whore immigrates with her family away from the Korean society’s stigma but she is denounced even by Korean society in US. In this process, Park’s novel shows the division into the 1st immigration generation sticking to the identity as a Korean, 2nd generation converting their identity in to American, and 3rd generation returning to the Korean identity to respond to the racism. Another axis of voluntary US immigration narration is characters who plan the status rise with the dream of middle-class and who are well-educated and do not have the social status or desperation of life. However, Park describes a process that female immigrants to US are sent in the labor field without the preparation for the language and employment to be in the suppression state called the class, minorities, gender of female immigrant. As the resistance not responding to the outside is withdrawn to the inside, the Korean culture they got accustomed to is revealed as the dementia and melancholy. The hope to advance to the US upper class is removed and the 1st-generation immigrants who enjoy the stable life in the block of colored race fall in the melancholy of weariness and lethargy as the boundary between the outside resistance and inside resistance is collapsed. As the Korean society develops fast, the substitute for comparison does not exist in the US life without the change of development. Accordingly, immigrants feel confused about their identity. Finally, their temporary return to Korea is the emotion of melancholy to find the lost target, which goes back to the first memory in their life. Immigrants’ orientation toward the root is valuable as a process of rebuilding the identity of Korean-American.