박태원의 동경(東京) 소설 지도와 상상의 고원사(高圓寺)

Abstract

Park, Tae-won (1910-1986) said in the Writer’s Words that “the stage of his novel would be the ‘old Tokyo before new Tokyo’ before publishing his unfinished novel ‘For Half a Year’ in series. In the ‘old Tokyo before new Tokyo’, ‘new Tokyo’ means the great Tokyo which was transformed into the metropolis. The stage of ‘For Half a Year’ is Tokyo before such transformation. For considering such division, it is required to thoroughly read the space in the novel on the basis of history, culture and geology of Tokyo. With critical mind on it, this paper carefully examined the space in the novel by Park, Tae-won related to Tokyo using the map before 1930s. It aims to understand the map of Park, Tae-won’s awareness on Tokyo on the basis of the relation between spaces in each novel. As a result, it was found that Park, Tae-won were not indulged only into the center of ideology led by Tokyo, the capital city of Japanese empire. In such tug-of-war, Park, Tae-won focused on the dark world in Tokyo, the periphery in Tokyo. The dark world means Sumida river area in Three-day Starving Spring Moon and The Miserable and Tokyo apartment in Travail. Through the dark world, he showed the space for life of the lower classes in Tokyo. As paying attention to the peripheral space not the mainstream place of institutional ideology, he could draw the differentiated Tokyo. His interest on the suburbs was originated from that dark world. Denying and dismissing the center of Tokyo enabled to pay attention to suburbs. Bangranjang, the cafe in Koenji, was created by the spirit of denial on the center of Tokyo. While it’s the place in imagination, it’s meaningful on the aspect that it’s the different space raising the question on the center of Tokyo. Park, Tae-won said that he felt overwhelmed by Hongo where there was Daiichi High School and Imperial University when he arrived in Japan for the first time. But he was not ultimately intimidated by keeping a certain distance from such space. Through the center concept, this paper secured the viewpoints of Park, Tae-won on Tokyo as the artist. It’s the result from his sense of identity as the writer or artist that he could imagine the spaces in suburbs out of the center and the dark side of the city. While he was the artist in the colony, he was ultimately the artist. His novels related to Tokyo indicate his position as described above.