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영어

For instance, Kenzo is deemed to see the pawnbroker’s shop as a space in which human’s insatiable desire for wealth (富) becomes laid bare plainly as what we humans lack continue to deceive, and to be deceived, by ourselves. K, the protagonist in Bincheo (Poor Wife), albeit an intelligentsia educated in China and Japan just as Kenzo is, is described in it as an obscure, lesser known writer whom no one but his wife recognize. What poverty means to Uno Koji indispensably relates to the pawnbroker’s shop. The pawnbroker’s shop appeared in Heotganan (Inside the Hut) tends to dually imply to its protagonist Yamaji as a consequence of the reversal and metamorphosis in its function: it first starts as a private space which provides him with a channel through which he is able to borrow money he needs as he had to have all his belongings foreclosed for his personal reasons, and it later ends up remaining a public space in which if the money he borrowed from the pawnbroker’s shop and those generated with time according to the interest rates it determined cannot be repaid as scheduled, what he previously left to the pawnbroker’s shop as security for a loan might not return to him as their original owner, or their original ownership would be transferred to some else’s. The author, Yeom Sang-seop, describes in Sookbakgi (Chronicle of Lodging) the everyday physical and mental sufferings of Koreans living in Japan during the period of the Japanese colonization through its protagonist, Beon Chang-gil. The lives of Koreans in Japan during the colonial time have nothing to do with, and are not benefited from, their social positions as the colonial subjects in it, no matter how high and successful theirs might be. The pawnbroker’s shop as a space exerted its influences on the then lives of the populace during the colonial period and in the middle of the rise of the modernism/modernist movement, started initially from the West, that led to affecting the then Korean society on a massive scale via Japan; it therefore represents the then lives of the populace after having undergone the relative ups and downs of this turbulent period. Accordingly, as the lifestyles of people today rely heavily on currency, it is commonly detected that their thoughts and behaviors tend to be determined by the currency economy to which they are subjected, the ethics of the relationships among humans broken, and the human relationships formed and maintained depending on whether or not to own currency.

한국어

겐조에게 전당포라는 공간은 인간의 부족함을 빌미로 속이고 속히는 그런 인간의 부(富)에 대한 끝없는 욕망을 드러내는 공간으로 비춰진 것으로 생각된다. 『빈처』의 주인공 K역시 중국과 일본에서 공부를 하고 온 지식인이지만, 무명작가로 유일한 아내 이외에 그를 인정해 주는 이는 아무도 없다. 우노 코지에게 가난은 전당포와 불가분의 관계이다. 『헛간 속』의 전당포라는 공간은 중심인물 야마지가 개인의 사정으로 인해 저당 잡히고 필요한 돈을 빌려 올수 있는 통로를 제공하는 ｢사적 공간｣으로 시작되지만 야마지가 맡긴 물건에 대한 빌린 돈과 전당포의 규정에 의한 이자를 기한 내에 지불하지 않을 경우 그 물건은 누군가의 제2의 사적 소유물이 될 수 있는 혹은 원주인에게 돌아갈 수도 없는 ｢공적 공간｣에 머물 수 있는 의미를 보여주고 있다. 염상섭은 『숙박기』를 통하여 당시 조선인이 겪어야만 했던 생활고와 정신적 고통을 변창길을 통해 표현하고 있다. 조선인에게 일본에서의 생활은 그 어떤 사회적 위치는 중요하지 않다. 전당포라는 공간이 곧 당시 서민들의 삶과 인생, 서구에서 시작된 근대는 일본을 거쳐 한국 당시 조선의 구석구석에 이르기까지 영향력을 발휘하고 있고 그것은 나름의 굴곡과 변절을 거쳐 민중의 삶을 대변, 표상하고 있다. 근대인의 생활방식이 화폐에 의존하다보니 사람들의 행동이나 사고를 화폐경제가 결정짓고 인간관계의 윤리가 깨지며 화폐 소유 여부에 따라 인간관계가 맺어진다는 공통된 특성을 발견할 수 있다하겠다.