미국 기행가사 〈海遊歌〉에 나타난 자아인식과 타자인식 고찰

A Study on the Perception of the Self and the Other in the United States Travel Gasa, Haeyuga

&nbsp;&nbsp;Haeyuga is a long travel gasa about the United States that was written by Kim Hanhong (1877-1943) upon his return from a trip to the United States via Japan from 1903 to 1908. The goal of this paper is to examine the author&quot;s perception of the self and the other as seen in this work, and to study the meaning of these perceptions in detail as they relate to the characteristics of the modern enlightenment period.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;As a result of this study of Haeyuga, it was discovered that the author did not undertake this trip to the United States out of a simple curiosity about the customs of a foreign land or to solve economic problems. That is, his goal in visiting the United States was to learn the advanced culture and new scholarship of a foreign nation and thus contribute to his nation&quot;s development in the context of the struggle for survival that marked the beginning of the 20th century. With this goal in mind he stayed in Hawaii and San Francisco in the United States for six years, and the advanced culture, institutions, laws, and customs of the United States that he observed during that time were given form in Haeyuga.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The perceptions of the self and the other in this work are somewhat biased. In the case of the United States, where he spent six years, he depicted the country as an enchanted land and showed himself as actively assimilating modern civilization. On the other hand, he exhibited a Western-centered point of view when looking on his own nation, which had been robbed of its sovereignty by Japan; unable to see through the exploitation and plotting of the Japanese imperialists, he laid the blame for the nation&quot;s state at the feet of the Korean people, whom he claimed were incompetent. Ultimately, we can locate this point of view within the context of the theory of social evolution, which was actively adopted by intellectuals during the modern enlightenment period. This theory states that the weak must become the strong by whatever means necessary in order to protect and preserve themselves, and the way to becoming strong is by becoming civilized. This is the thinking presented in Haeyuga.