Tae-Jun Lee is a writer who constantly strives to create a ‘literary topophilia’ that is lacking in the real world through pure literature. Topophilia in his work is a place of restoration of sovereignty that all Koreans who were colonized aspire to. ...
Tae-Jun Lee is a writer who constantly strives to create a ‘literary topophilia’ that is lacking in the real world through pure literature. Topophilia in his work is a place of restoration of sovereignty that all Koreans who were colonized aspire to. This desire to return to the topos (place) and the will to recover from the other to the subject are hidden in his pure literature, providing readers with a 'literary topophilia'.
In this study, the 'topophilian' approach that separated space and place, which had not been dealt with in previous studies, and the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized people are to be considered more politically through otherness.
Tae-Jun Lee's short stories "Spring" (1932), "Planting a Flowering Tree" (1933), "Hometown" (1931), "Paegangnaeng" (1938), and "Stone Bridge" (1943) are the poles of Japanese colonial extortion. It was published in the early 1930's to early 1940's. Among Lee Tae-jun's many works, the topophilic element is prominently revealed in these works, and the positions of the characters as others in the works are revealed three-dimensionally.
「Spring」(1932), 「Planting Flowering Trees」(1933) and 「Stone Bridge」(1943) are works that talk about old villages (houses) and farmland with topophilia. 「Spring」 and 「Planting Flowering Trees」 are stories about the loss of places for home and farmland, and 「Stone Bridge」 is a work that talks about the origin of human existence. 「Spring」 and 「Planting Flowering Trees」 are the times in the early 1930s when our land was seized by Japanese colonial rule land surveys and acid and rice propagation plans. It was a period when landowners in Joseon were replaced by Japanese and many farmers moved to the city. "Stone Bridge" was a period in which efficiency was considered rather than the value of farmland with the advent of capitalism by material civilization under colonial rule. This material civilization is also a product of modern imperialism, which destroys the value of the old and emphasizes the efficiency of capitalism. By explaining the topophilia lost in "Spring" and "Planting a Flowering Tree" and the root attachment to their hometown (house, farmland) in "Stone Bridge", they suggest a way for farmers or colonized people to find a place. .
In 「Hometown」(1931), ‘Yun Gun’ is an intellectual who went to study in Japan and earned a college degree, and ‘Hyun’ of 「Pae Gangnaeng」(1938) is a novelist. Although both characters are elite, they cannot find a decent job and are always in poverty. The reason they do not seek a decent job is that the decent job is the gathering place of the subject who took away their topophilia (Joseon, hometown).
In 「Spring」, 「Planting Flowering Trees」, and 「Stone Bridge」, they are farmers and reveal specific places (hometown, neighborhood, farmland, house) related to their lives, but the two characters of 「Hometown」 and 「Pegangnaeng」 Although he is an intellectual of the city, he does not have a specific topophilia as a peripheral person who does not have a central topos. He tries to realize topophilia through the desire to restore the sovereignty of his motherland. “Spring”, “Planting a flower tree”, and “Stone Bridge” recover topophilia through the relocation to a real place (hometown) and “Hometown” and “Pagangnaeng” through the political situation of restoring the sovereignty of the motherland. want to do It can be said to be a topos search for actual land restoration and sovereignty restoration.
The fact that humans have their own place and that there is a topophilia makes us aware of our existence. We are living in an era of selfish, self-centered thinking, gradually losing our existence in the material civilization and capitalist market economy system. A study on the topophilia and other ethics of Tae-Jun Lee's work in the present age will be the best answer to the question of our existence.