The Popular Novels of Colonial Chosun and the Fantasy of ‘Namyang’, Focused on The Golden Cave

Abstract

The term “Namyang Archipelago” has been forgotten in Korea. Although the Namyang Islands were imbricated in the lives of Koreans during the colonial period, few Koreans know the term nowadays. During the colonial period, “Namyang Fever” was prevalent in Chosun. Namyang was thought of as an idealized land, but its natives were described as uncivilized barbarians. Such contradictory views are found in Kim Nae-sung’s adventure novel for boys The Golden Cave, published in 1937. This study examines the meaning of the obsession with Namyang in colonial Chosun, concentrating in particular on this novel.When the novel was published in 1937, Chosun was undergoing a mania for gold and a veritable gold rush. During this period, Kim Nae-seong was drawing readers’ attention to the Namyang Islands by describing them as the place where The Golden Cave is located. It was not that Kim Nae-seong wanted to encourage people to migrate to the Namyang Archipelago out of self-interest. All the children who go on adventures in the novel try to use the gold they have found in the public interest, through initiatives such as building an orphanage. They are aiming for a life that abandons the primacy of “one’s desire,” “one’s success,” and “one’s joy”, and think only of the public interest. This form of life meant 殉忠, “giving one’s life for the country,” which the Japanese Empire required of colonial Koreans during this period.