게리 팩의 『종이비행기』에 나타난 하와이 공간의 재현

The Representation of the Space of Hawaii in Gary Pak’s A Ricepaper Airplane

This paper attempts to examine how the reality of Hawaii is represented in Gary Pak’s A Ricepaper Airplane by focussing on the technique of storytelling. In this novel Sung Wha, the first generation of Korean immigrants, intends to give a kind of historical education to his nephew, Yong Gil by telling his life experience in the face of death. Although there has been strong attachment and sympathy between them, their ideological gap prevents Yong Gil from understanding Sung Wha. So the work of interpreting the meaning of his story is left to the readers of this novel.The implication of Sung Wha’s story can be fully understood through contextualizing and historicizing. In this novel Sung Wha’s storytelling is found to have these four meanings: First, his story tries to revise the dominant American centered perspective of history by presenting the complex relationship between the U.S.A. and other Asian nations such as Japan, China, Korea, and the Philippines in the early 20th century. Second, the story of immigrants’ plantation life in the 1920s discloses the fictive aspect of the myth of American Dream and represents the complex relationship between plantation laborers with various ethnic backgrounds. Third, Sung Wha’s story on the Korean immigrants’ life is meaningful to revise the local history of Hawaii where Koreans have been relatively ignored. Finally, his story presents not only racially and nationally various society of Hawaii but also the individual differences which cannot be wholly included in the group identities such as nation, ethnic, and class.