In this study, the women characters in novels by Kim You-Jung, who had to victims of desperate times, were focused on.
Kim You-Jung(1908-1937) is one of representative novelist in 1930. Although he was alive shortly, we know that he made unforgettable...
In this study, the women characters in novels by Kim You-Jung, who had to victims of desperate times, were focused on.
Kim You-Jung(1908-1937) is one of representative novelist in 1930. Although he was alive shortly, we know that he made unforgettable achievements in korea literary history. It has been appraised that he described pains and distress of farmers under colonial days in his novels very well. Furthermore, he expressed them of people in that time humorously and really, and settled his own a peculiar novel esthetics handling the Social and economic problems sharply.
At first, this study surveyed how they related to the private life of Kim You-Jung, and how they related to the change of the times. The persons who affected Kim You-Jung's life were his mother, his sister, Par Nok-Ju, and Deulbyungyi. The relationship with them made him have introspective personality and unique view of women. Also, it awaked him the way of dealing with poor life.
Second, women characters in novels by Kim You Jung behaved themeselves instinctively, rather than morally. Although it was abnormal action, it was the only way to escape the poor situation. So women chose prostitution to survive without ethical shame or the sense or the sence of sin.
Third, in novels by Kim You Jung, women were used as a means of escapism, and the relationships between husband and wife were abnormal. It expressed that women were treated as a commercial object by patricentric ideology that men controled, and women were belonged.
At last there were lots of the reversed relationships between men and women's role, far from traditional women features. In contrast with men, who tried to escape from the realities of life, women showed full of vitality, facing the problem that they should take response of their living with their weak constitution.
Kim You jung described adversities or distress of Koreans under circumstances of economic exploitation by Japan in 1930' in his works vividly thru women's ways to live negative life without moral.
As poverty inevitably had brought about seriously moral confusion, we can find that the struggles for living were preceded to moral. This was a tragedy of our people who had lost their own themselves under conflicting world of 1930.
In conclusion, Kim You Jung, depicting the poor farm willage and the life low class people living in the city in the 1930's, enlarged the range of novels. Thus the novels of kim are of great significance in that he played the role of a witness in the 1930's, through the description of impoverished condition of nation, facing up to reality.