박경리 문학 연구 = A Study of Park Kyung-ri's Novels

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

1. Introduction
The literary works of Park Kyung-ri are usually divided into three groups; first, the works which reflect the author's personal experiences of the war and were written during the 1950s; second, the novels which were written during the 1960s and deal with the war and social problems in a more objective perspective; and third, The Land(Toe-ji), which is a novel in series of sixteen volumes in total. The purpose of this study is to examine how Park's earlier works, the first and the second group of novels, evolved towards constructing the literary scope of The Land. The study, therefore, avoids discussing her previous works in detail and their narrow issues, but rather compares each work succinctly in order to provide a broader understanding of Park's achievements in the overall progress of her literary career. In other word, it is an expansive and time encompassing approach to Park Kyung-ri's literary works
2. Previous Studies
Many scholars have categorized Park's novels as private narratives. Park, in turn, has argued that, "there is not one critic who would be so audacious as to deny that experiences, in one way or another, are part of subject materials for fictional narrative."
3. The Novels
Park Kyung-ri had an unfortunate childhood of having to live apart from her father. In that lack of fatherly love Park grew up fed more by despair and rejection than happiness and hope for future. During the Korean War, the North Koreans had taken her husband away and right after the war she had lose her son. With these unbearable sorrows Park concentrated all her energy to writing. It is not surprising that her unhappy experiences were reflected in her works.
4. The Land
It is in the Land that Park achieves a more profound level of literary writing overcoming her prior limitations. From the Japanese exploitation and our people's patriotic struggle for independence to the Second World War and the 1945 liberation, The Land embraces the history of our people, the stories of the history of our nation.
5. Conclusion
I have discussed Park Kyung-ri's literary progress by examining her short stories in the 1950s and four full-length novels. Park started with short stories that accentuated the fragmented individuals through characters resembling her. Park, then, moved onto writing stories about families, and futher on, the tragedy of our people. The progress indicates the author's perspective extending and her deeper awareness of our peoples' lives.