본문 바로가기
  • Home

Toshiyuki Kajiyama’s “The Clan Records” Theory –Based on Character Description-

Choe, Junho 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Toshiyuki Kajiyama was born and raised in colonial Chosun as a second generation under colonization. He started creating his work after he returned to Hiroshima postwar, and this led him to publish “The Clan Records” set during colonial Korea criticizing the reformation policy of names to Japanese names led by the Japanese Government General of Korea. Various kinds of people appear in “The Clan Records” based on colonial Chosun. In this thesis, they are classified as soldiers withholding military force in colonial Chosun, administration governing by the Japanese bureaucrats, and the colonized people of Chosun, and “I” with overall perspective in the story. Analysis of the text in each category first, emphasizes the injustice of Chosun colonization by describing Japanese soldiers and bureaucrats with criticism. Second, emphasis is made on the resistant colonized people of Chosun by describing them as active and not only suffering persecution from the reformation policy of names to Japanese names. Lastly, Japanese who discriminated and despised the people of Chosun and speculated knowing the injustice of colonization are depicted in the description of “I.” Judging from an overall perspective, it can be interpreted that throughout the entire plot, Toshiyuki Kajiyama wanted to depict how he would have acted if he were in the same situation as the protagonist. In other words, the author is overlapping his ideality of colonizer Japanese by leaving in another virtuous Japanese over the binomial oppositional structure between the bad Japanese and the poor people of Chosun.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.