코리안 디아스포라 문학의 재현주체 양상

Abstract

Korean diaspora literature presents different memories of history and perceptions of reality according to different subjects of reproduction. Foreigners and migrants imagined and reproduced by Korean writers are otherized by the desire of the subject projected onto them or depicted ideally, which explains why the voice of the person in question is not heard, but the appearance of an author as the foreigner in question is not easy due to language limitations. However, writers who are ethnic Koreans living in China or defected in North Korea are publishing their works. Written in English, Pachinko embodies the stories of four generations of the Zainichi diaspora at a high completion level. It was written by Min Jin Lee who is a Korean-American writer with a complex and hybrid identity. Introducing the histories of Korea and Japan, the reality of a colony, and the diaspora situation in American society, this novel attracted attention because it projects the viewpoint of patriarchal capitalist Christianity and is thus received with affinity rather than unfamiliarity. Putting history in the background and focusing on how to eat and live, this novel projects the experiences of the person in question who failed to settle in high society despite her diploma from a prestigious university and a job that everyone envies. The writer borrows from the Bible for the occupations and names of her characters with the Charles Dickens literature laid at the bottom. The writer's life in America where she immigrated is reflected on the salvation of a man by a corrupt woman, Noa making suicide despite his recognition struggle, and Mozasu and Solomon who fail to escape from Pachinko. The Wind Flower and The Wife from China written by Heo Ryeon-sun, who is an ethnic Korean living in China, expresses complaint and sadness toward South Korean society and its people who talk down and discriminate against ethnic Koreans living in China. In these novels, she tries to move away from the standardized stereotypes depicted by Korean writers by setting migrants who are ethnic Koreans living in China as intellectuals or married migrant women with complicated problems. She reports and resists the dual viewpoints to treat ethnic Koreans living in China and also the (im)possibilities of settlement as they are not welcome. Kim Yu-gyeong, who uses a false name to write stories after defecting from North Korea. Depicting the diaspora of defection from North Korea which holds the lowest status in South Korean society and is subjected to serious biases, she highlights the horrors and the violation of human rights in North Korean society in The Love Song of Youth and The Station of Human Insults. These novels reproduce realistically the hardship narratives of women through the bodily harm, purchasing marriage, human trafficking, and sexual violence of migrant women. Unlike Heo Ryeon-sun, she appreciates South Korean society that accepts North Korean defectors and supports their settlement and also appeals that they are the same ethnic group as South Korean people instead of objects of multicultural policies. The writers as the person in question build a unique literary world through the boundary life of diaspora and experiences with a confusing identity amid the demand from the literary circles required in the migrated country and their self-censorship.