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Korean Modern Peasants fiction and The Representation of Water

Yun Young-Ok 1

1전북대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

In peasant novels the method of representing water operates within cognitive boundaries. In cases in which peasants’ feelings in regards to water are lyrical and individualized, peasants’ lives are depicted as close to a natural state, whereas in cases in which water appears as one part of the social structure, peasants’ lives are depicted as part of a great chain linked with colonial modernization. We can detect that in peasant novels the modern usage of water and waterways, villages, routes, and facilities involving rice appear as a great network. Therefore, in the case of peasants who are depicted as having a “lyrical” relationship with water, the lives of peasants of have a quality of idealism, and in the case of peasants depicted as part of the modern social network, peasants’ lives reveal the social reality. Also, whether water appears as an individual feeling or is represented as a social composite is closely related to the author’s world view. In the case of the former, the meaning of water has the tendency to transcend concrete social time and space, and in the case of the latter the Korean farmlands of colonial modernity exist within a social web and within concrete space and time. This is because the existing understanding of the regulation of water,production of rice, and efficiency of distribution is related to social power relations in relation to water regulation. Therefore, we can discern that the method of representing water in peasant novels depends on whether the author deals with the realities the peasants face on an individual level or a social structural level.

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