earticle

영어

This study explores how North Korea accepts American literature into its literary system by comparing two different translations of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925) between South and North Korea. Unlike South Korea, North Korea regards the USA as its enemy, uses literature as promotional documents to maintain its system, applies its Juche ideology to select a text to be translated. As this novel describes Christianity and capitalism in the USA, the North Korean authority regarding religion as a drug takes a translation strategy to reinforce the negative impression of Christianity, checks literary works through the publishing and censorship system. This study discusses how the multi-phased system surrounding the translation operates by applying Even-Zohar’s theory of polysystem. And it analyzes how the North Korean translators strengthen the negative impression of Christianity through the religious literacy of Moore and Ennis. As a result, it concludes that a functional change happens from an expressive text to an operative text according to the purpose of translation in North Korean translation.