식민지 경계를 가로지르는 소년들의 상상력 - 최인훈의 「두만강」과 권정생의 「슬픈 나막신」을 중심으로

Abstract

This study examines the imagery of the colonial era in Choi In-hoon's Tumen River and Kwon Jeong-saeng's Sad Wooden Shoes and explores the possibility of a reading that goes beyond the dichotomous structure of colonizer/colonized. Writers Choi In-hoon and Kwon Jeong-saeng were born in the 1930s and experienced colonialism as children. The events depicted in these two novels, which recreate the colonial period from the perspective of boys, align with the authors’ actual experiences. In the process of depicting boyhood against the background of the Japanese colonial period before and after the Asia-Pacific War, the lives of the colonial people at the time are narrated. These novels go beyond the binary structure of colonizer and colonized and conflict or antagonism between ethnic groups by exploring the friendship between a Korean boy and a Japanese girl who are members of a village community. The imagined version of the colony as a region of “animal intimacy” in Tumen River expands the novel’s space beyond colonial Korea [Joseon] to Asia. This was an attempt to explore the world history of the periphery, which differs from the history of the modern Western world. Kwon Jeong-saeng's Sad Wooden Shoes is set in Tokyo, where he spent his childhood. It expresses his hope for a peaceful world through the friendship of street children facing discrimination against colonial Koreans and the horrors of war. The anti-war message that goes beyond ethnic or ideological conflicts is based on the author’s childhood memories and experiences in Tokyo, the capital of the colonial mother country. This study focuses on two writers who experienced childhood during the colonial era and their resultant works. It traces their imaginations that transcend national boundaries in narratives based on experiencing coexistence with immigrants or migration. Tuman River and Sad Wooden Shoes capture aspects of post-colonialism that Choi In-hoon and Kwon Jeong-saeng sought to explore through literature. They convey the possibility of friendship and solidarity that they sought out, going beyond the boundaries of ethnicity and nation. Colonialism suggests one possibility to overcome the dichotomous thinking of pro-Japanese or anti-Japanese.