ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

This paper compares the novel 일월 (Sunlight Moonlight, 1964) by Korean novelist Sunweon Hwang (1915-2000) with 破戒 (The Broken Commandment, 1906) by the Japanese naturalist writer Tōson Shimazaki (1872-1943) and identifies the essence of expulsion and alienation, which are prominent in both novels. The two novels focus on the anguish of a main character from the butcher (baekjeong) class and examine how the conflict of the class system still persists in modern society. Hwang describes the issue of exile as a personal internal problem within the large frame of society without much criticism, but Shimazaki decisively criticizes the class-system heritage of the past. The fact that the Japanese main character of The Broken Commandment, who was expelled, leaves for Texas at the end, leads to the realization that the political direction of the Meiji Restoration and the theme of the novel share the same context. Texas is a somewhat orchestrated place to remind readers of the moral lesson of equality, and the reason that the character leaves for Texas is that Japan, which was a status society, was in the process of being modernized by the abolition of the status system, and because of the enlightenment message of the Meiji era that it is important to learn from advanced Western culture. However, in Sunlight Moonlight, the exiles and the aliens do not try to punish the perpetrators or reform the society that drove them out, and the boundary of good and evil between those who exile others and the exiled is also vague. This is because those who exile are also members of a society that is wounded by those who are exiled. In the matter of expulsion, Hwang is trying to heal within the text by excluding social and historical elements and leaning on symbolism. This in turn results in the healing of the lyrical self in the world of poetry, which ultimately leads to the primal question of I, who am myself.”