Abstract

In the 1950s, the magazine Huimang(Hope) was published in order to support the national efforts in leading the cultural education of the public, reconstructing the country, and paving the way for the future during the wartime, which was a time of destruction and loss. Accordingly, the exploration of "hope", which was represented in the magazine, is not only the key to understanding the magazine, but also a way to considering its significance and limits. It is true that the magazine represented "hope" from a variety of discourses. However, in this study, I considered "hope" from the "Child and Youth Discourse." In Huimang(Hope), minors stood for both the hope in the future and the despair in the present. Unlike the other juvenile journals, in which children and youth symbolized the hope for the future, in Huimang(Hope), children and youth had different representations according to their social status and talents. For example, the children with respectable parents and a happy family, the students who were able to study without concerns about tuition fees, and the geniuses with outstanding talents represented as the "hope" to make our the future better. However, orphans, biracial children, self-supporting students, child laborers, and juvenile delinquents are represented as the "despair" in the present. Since these children and youth were seen as defective by society, they became objects of removal, alarm, suspension, purification, sympathy, and indifference. In conclusion, it is safe to say that in Huimang(Hope), the subject of reconstruction was the ruling elite. This kind of elitism is still prevalent in our society today. To our dismay, the more most of parents are trying to make their children another elite, the more the "hope" in our society disappears. The root of this irony can be found in the magazine Huimang(Hope). This study is important because, in the sense that I examined the relatively unknown magazine Huimang(Hope), and uncovered somewhat of its significance and limits. However, I think that a comparative study should be performed with other contemporary journals.