1970년대 중산층의 소유 욕망과 불안 : 박완서의 1970년대 저작을 중심으로

Abstract

It was 1970s that the capitalistic monetary economy of South Korea has begun to emerge in earnest. It meant that the desire for ownership mediated with money was in full flourish widely. Property became a single criterion in c​lassification of social strata and thus it was easier to move up to the upper class than feudal caste system. Middle class was a symbol to represent the hope and anxiety in up and down movement. Park, Wanseo stressed that she was a member of middle class, and she wrote the best works to describe minutely everyday life of middle class in 1970s. Her novels and essays depicted vividly a large group of people who were susceptible to the desire for ownership and money as well as portrayed mentality and value orientation of middle class. She attributed such importance to the role of middle class to present value in society because she regarded upper class and lower class as degenerated one. But it was difficult for middle class to be a firm substance. Their position was unstable just as flexibility of money. They suffered from schizophrenia between upper class and lower class. Liberalism of middle class was brought up in schizophrenia originated from their anxiety and unrest. She pointed out ethic and moral and called attention to humanity but that could not help mingling with the hard struggle for existence based on the free market and meritocracy. If she criticized inexorably corrupted reality she had to survive in it. Thus it seemed that she tried to resolve the dilemma of middle class as a virtue of liberalism.