박근형 연극에 나타난 가족 이데올로기에 대한 비판적 인식

Abstract

Geun Hyung Park is one of the playwrights who consistently pursues his unique world of play. One of the characteristics that is constantly discovered in Park’s plays is the motif of ‘family.’ Park chooses family as the motif in most of his work. Park particularly emphasizes ‘family life’ rather than ‘individual life’ to focus on the internal problems of families. Therefore, the motif of family in Park’s plays takes a very important position in the content and theme. The Korean society imposes unique value on families and possesses a strictly obstinate family ideology. Park observes distorted family relations or individuals who cannot be happy within their families to identify the problems related to the family ideology that is deeply rooted in the Korean society. This is one of the important backgrounds for which Park is constantly dealing with ‘family life.’This study selected five of Park’s most famous plays to specifically examine Park’s critical understanding of family ideology. First, his <Gyee> criticizes extreme family egoism by depicting a family that cannibalizes people to keep the family full. Park chooses ‘absurd time and space’ and the extreme subject of ‘human flesh’ to warn his audiences about the awful consequences of family egoism. His <DaeDaeSonSon>, which is the only piece that deals with family history among the five pieces selected, criticizes Korea’s unique family-centered ideology by humorously depicting the history of the Cho family that is all about maintaining and worshipping the its clan. He reveals the unethical and hypocritical attitudes of the Cho family for the audiences to reconsider the family-centered ideology of the Korean society. In <ChungChunYaeChan>, he talks about the son and the father who lose his ethical authority and fail to perform his paternal responsibilities to criticize the traditional family ideology of patriarchism and suggests the pessimistic future of patriarchism. <GyeongSook GyeongSook ABuGee> contrasts a blood-related family with an irresponsible father and a quasi-family to criticize the identity of blood-related families. In <NueMu NolRaGee MaRa>, Park depicts a ‘smelly house’ of a family in agonizing relations to deny the family myth and the maternal myth. He clearly shows how the ideals of family myth and maternal myth are distant from the reality. In result of this study, Park’s criticism of family ideology appears in various forms. He comprehensively criticizes both the general family problems and the unique family issues of Korea. The family ideology of Korea is currently undergoing a radical change. It has been long since the traditional family ideologies have exposed problems to show the signs of crisis. Also, there have emerged various forms of families, including single-parent families, one-person families, adoption families, and multi-cultural families. In this respect, Park’s critical understanding of family ideologies allows you to see the obvious family forms from a new perspective and greatly contributes to awakening the essential questions about families. Park’s work is noticeable among the various artistic and literature pieces that deal with family issues because of his extraordinary skills to capture the key issues inherent in the problems of family ideologies.