문순태의 노년소설에 나타난 ‘노인상’과 소통의 방식

Abstract

This study focused on Mun Sun-tae's novels to find out the value and the prospect of the old age novel. While it might be open to dispute where to draw the line of old age novel, it can be narrowed down to novels wherein an old man is the leading character and which deal with the lives of the old. A writer himself gets old as a natural person. Some aging writers who have reached their senescence, have released noticeable novels about the everyday lives of the old. In this case, the novels wherein the writers themselves aging as natural persons wrote about the lives of the old, proved to be high-quality. As an old age is the time for arranging one's life, the old age novel broaches death and arouses the fundamental nature of our lives. In this sense, it is worth researching on literary implications and meanings of literary history of the old age novel. Novels of Mun Sun-tae are especially noteworthy. Although ther is a limitation that this study is focused only on novels of Mun Sun-tae, it is because his novels clearly connect with the possibility and the aim of old age novels. It seems that further study on works of the old age novel such as works of Lee Chung-jun, Kim Won-il, Oh Jeong-hui, Park Wan-seo, would give some implications about the problems and future direction of the old age novel.