The world of Hwang, Sun Won's novel is formed by the tension of two worlds, lyrical world and prosaic routine. Prosaic routine is the features of realistic world lack of metaphysical concept or moral ideal. Only realistic survival is the most importan...
The world of Hwang, Sun Won's novel is formed by the tension of two worlds, lyrical world and prosaic routine. Prosaic routine is the features of realistic world lack of metaphysical concept or moral ideal. Only realistic survival is the most important goal of life. Therefore, the characters in this world conflict and split for the realistic interests. But the lyrical world gives the stability of life and provides ethical direction to the characters who are wandering in the world that is lack of metaphysical concepts or moral norm. The reason why this world has the lyrical form is because it's not the concept that's forming the world but the sensual form of emotion and personal memory. In this lyrical world, the characters take the opportunity of dissolving the uncomfortable tension and distrust with others in their prosaic routine and compromising with them.
The lyrical world of ideal which is shaped in the novel of Hwang, Sun Won has the channel of novelistic generation like the following. The level of style which was grasping the lyrical object in Nup rises to the absolute object the character seeks for when it comes to Byul . However, this absoluteness has to be adjusted realistically since it is absolutely confronted with reality. In Hak , the world of absolute lyrics changes to relative and positive form. Nevertheless, it cannot get out of substantial abstractness that lyrical world can be mediated only through denying the reality. When the lyrical world dominated the novel, a novel levels down to 'fairy tale' losing the characteristic of the genre. 『Sonagi』 is a typical example of this. This lyrical world is usually combined with objects such as childhood, past and nature. this characteristic of lyrical world that's formed in the novel of Hwang, Sun Won naturally makes the novel far from the reality by making the lyrical world confront with the history. This distance from reality weakens the lyrical world ontologically and carve the mood of sadness deeply in the lyrical world.