김주혜의 『작은 땅의 야수들』에 나타난 셀프 오리엔탈리즘적 민족의식

초록

This paper analyses the self-Orientalising nationalism depicted in Juhea Kim’s novel Beasts of a little Land. Having the historical background stretching from the Japanese colonial period to the Park Chung-Hee regime, this novel primarily shows the lives of Jade, a gisaeng(courtesan), and JungHo, a communist. As the novel highlights the symbolic significance of the tiger in Korean history, previous studies have interpreted the work with keywords such as subaltern micro-history, historical narrative strategies, and the tiger metaphor. Meanwhile, the fact that Kim selectively employs Korean history to convey themes of the intimate loves of individuals invites a more critical reading. Although Kim explicitly states that the novel is not intended as an instructive work meant to teach Korean history to Western readers, the images of “the invaded Oriental”, “the resistant Oriental” and “the mysterious Oriental” render the narrative susceptible to the charge that it reorganises Korean history into a plot structure familiar to Western readers. In particular, the notion of “the invaded Oriental” is presented without fully exposing—or gradually obscuring—the agents of such invasion(imperialist states), suggesting that the novel performs self-Orientalism. This paper examines how individual narratives in Beasts of a little Land are mobilised in service of macro-historical narrative and nationalism, concerning the text through the lens of “the Oriental that desires to be seen by the West.” In that way, this work critiques the novel’s flattening of history into images of Oriental passivity and resistance, and proposes a more multilayered approach to understanding “Korea in the world.” Such an approach holds significance in an era of diasporic literatures and the literature of “translated Korea,” prompting a reconsideration of “we” and “the nation.”

키워드