박화성 문학에 나타난 기독교 인식의 특징 연구

Abstract

In this article I studied the novels and essays of Park Hwa-Seong, who was a representative woman in the 1920-30s as a tendency writer. She wrote a lot of novels over 60 years from 1925 when she became a writer till 1988 when she died. The literary world of Park Hwa-Seong changed greatly according to the conditions of times. In this article, above all, I want to focus on her novels that dealt with the christianity as a subject matter in order to prove the characteristics of recognition of christianity expressed in her works. This study can be an example of how the tendency writers of the 1920-30s recognized christianity and expressed their ideology in their work. Park Hwa-Seong had a specific biography in respect of christianity as a tendency writer in the 1920-30s. She was baptized as an infant and led a religious life very eagerly in her youth. However, as she became a tendency writer and wrote realistic novels reflecting the conditions of the hard times, Japanese colonial era, she wrote novels which expressed negative recognition of American missionary and protest providence of God. In the 1920s-30s, the tendency writers looked upon christianity as a certain ideology for the perspective of socialism and criticized it on the ground that christianity could not improve the conditions of colonial reality. As an intelligent leader, she considered anti-christian emotions as an act of nationalistic faith to overcome Japanese colonial conditions. So the reason why she wrote negative christian view in her novels in the 1930s was to disclose the feeling of helplessness of christianity which couldn't revolutionize the dismal reality of nation. For example, the short story "Hangui" showed the question of theodicy, why the good had to suffer from hunger and poverty despite the prosperity of the evil. She doubted about the presence of God and became a skeptic of God in her life. Nevertheless she didn't leave the christianity and lived a christian life in a specific method. If she had not known the christianity, she could not have written such a novel that raised a metaphysical question about the providence of God. Through her life, Park Hwa-Seong created works differently according to the times. But as she was a writer who had related with christian background from her childhood, in the time of Japanese colonial period, she used christianity as subject matters in her works. Also she showed christian consciousness in the form of negative as a tendency writer and expressed writer's recognition of christianity as a skeptic of God honestly in the latter part of her literary world.