The purpose of this study is to illustrate that the various aspects of the Korean postwar novels such as idealism, snobbism and existentialism, etc. stem from the particularity of the Korean War.
There are two general viewpoints to understand The Ko...
The purpose of this study is to illustrate that the various aspects of the Korean postwar novels such as idealism, snobbism and existentialism, etc. stem from the particularity of the Korean War.
There are two general viewpoints to understand The Korean War. One is traditional viewpoint of Western, which claims that the Korean War was broken out during the communism centering on the Soviet Union were trying to extend communism to the world and the main basis of this claim is the fact that the North Korea provoked the war first.
In contrast, revisionists led by Bruce Cumings focused on the fundamental reason of the war rather than asking who first shot the gun. They say that it is important to note that the Korean War occurred in structural connection among a series of historical events such as nation's liberation(from Japan's colonial rule) - divided occupation by U.S. and Soviet - establishment of divided state.
Regardless of which side is adopted, it's clear that the Korean War was the field which showed sharp conflict of two ideologies, capitalism vs communism(or socialism) and a kind of proxy war by external force for the inner conflict of nation which may bring about the change of the mode of production in newly born country, the Republic of Korea.
Following the intent of the U.S., the big winner of World War, Korea has been divided into two parts, north and south along the 38th parallel, each side occupied by U.S. and Soviet. The problem is that the economic condition and political state of Korea at that time was already leaning toward communization. so the U.S. Army had to establish pro-American and pro-capitalism government, standing against the will of the public of South Korea.
The Korean War had cut off all of the controversies and inner conflict over which the society of South Korea is seething after the nation's liberation. During the war, preserving life is the most important thing and America led the Korean War to its half victory in the South Korea, so when the war finished, only one way remains to follow. According to America's plan from the first, South Korea entered into the route of capitalism and became the strategic position of the U.S. in the Far East. And then, the Korean War had defined the very important issue of the inner conflict, class(hierarchy) as an󰡐enemy󰡑, a social taboo.
Under this rigidity of Ideology, the dissolution of the feudal system, one of the main themes of the postwar novel is almost reduced to the level of family story. In An Old House by Jung Han-sook, the conflict between classes arising from the war was exposed only through the disobedience of half blood uncle. This can be explained by the fact that author aims at purism and true love but the more exact reason was that she was under the times when taking an objective view of ideology was not possible.
In South and North by Hong Sung-won, the crucial factor to dissolve the feudal system was also irrelevant to class. Woo's family, the prop of the town called 󰡐Budneae󰡑, both materially and emotionally, was the victim under struggle of classes happened during the war. But Woo's family was described as just a victim of tragedy, with no relationship with landowner's evil conduct and class interests under the feudalism. So the fall of Woo's family was completed by their own corruption, not by class struggle. They were just misled by their abstract vision about the coming age. So the family's fall was described as the result of the accidental situation, the war, not the one of class struggle.
The Korean War means not only the end of feudalism but also the beginning of capitalism. But under the situation that the voluntary struggle of classes was removed artificially by the U.S. Army and the Rhee Syng-man administration, the capitalism in South Korea developed in the most corrupted way. Besides, the most of the production bases were destroyed during the war and an accumulation of capital, the core driving force of capitalism was mainly accomplished not by the production, but by the U.S. aid and the secret trade or distribution with aid goods. In this corrupted way of accumulation of capital, there appears snobbism. South and North by Hong Sung-won shows the process of this corrupt accumulation of capital concretely through the character called Seo Tae-ho and Park Han-ik who was the tenant farmer of Woo's family.
No matter how it was accumulated, capital has more formidable power than the war. A Shower by Yeom Sang-seop is a very special novel describing the daily life unaffected by the war. The thing to dominate the daily life is 󰡐money󰡑. Money has been author's main subject since Three Generations. In Three Generations, the mammonism is, not just a kind of interests, but the measure of criticizing the colony system and capitalism. In A Shower, however, money took place in the core category of value. Money became the best weapon for him to survive during the war. It means that the critical thought about money has disappeared. This change is related to absolutized anticommunism ideology.
Yeom Sang-seop, who has advocated conservative nationalism by merger between the left and the right during colonial rule, walked into obvious conservative route after one axis(the left) out of two ideologies has disappeared through the war. And he came to accept daily life of capitalism without any troubles. Although the left ideology became a taboo, that doesn't mean the disappearing of inner conflict of society. But Yeom Sang-seop regarded the loss of the left ideology in the same light as the lapse of social inner conflict and finally returned to his inborn class, bourgeois.
Putting a gag on the left ideology, ironically, brought author back to his own class nature. A lyrical novelist, Hwang Soon-won, who has written his novels with the main theme, the good of nature and the social evil, also showed definitely his own class nature as a landowner in Cain's Descendant in spite of objective point of view. The protagonist, Hoon has correct understanding of his own circumstances but in his objective perception, there's no room for pains of tenant farmers. He, as a landowner, could hardly know farmer's pains and when he was landowner's son, the world, though poor, was very kind and beautiful. Now, communism destroyed that beautiful world.
Dismissing the true understanding of the world developed to the different phase in Choi In-hoon's and Jang Yong-hak's novels. Ideology itself is idealistic but it was born from the contradiction of reality. Choi's The Square and Jang's Poetical works of John deal with the left and right ideology as a main theme in earnest. But they didn't care about the history of producing ideologies. The thing that matters to them is what the effects of established ideology to human are. Ideology itself can not be neither absolute good nor evil but it is clear that the ideology is born from the reality and lives according to its suitability for reality and moves constantly with the change of reality. It is the nature of ideology. However when people focused on the value judgement, good or evil about ideology itself, ignoring the contradictions of reality which have produced ideology, they fell into a trap of idealism and the result is going to be a tragedy. That is why heros of The Square and Poetical works of John could not help but choose death
The reason why this idealism had appeared was because the problem of ideology emerging from the contradiction of objective world was transformed into the problem of two regime, North vs South. Now, the particularity of the Korean War which cut off the atmosphere of voluntary revolution, by ignoring the concreteness of ideology with the relationship of reality, caused too much idealism to the novels which is obliged to become a special reflection of reality.