오상원 소설 연구 - 허무주의적 현실인식을 중심으로

Abstract

This study is to look into the nihilistic cognition of reality revealed in Oh Sangwon’s novels. After gaining independence from Japan in 1945, with no time to overcome the chaotic state of the nation, Korea had to go through Korean War, which left many wounded and dead. And the people survived the war could not live a normal life with scars from the war. As the one of the 1950s’ new generation authors, the author Oh Sangwon made efforts to raise some questions and tried to find the answers about human beings by embodying the life that human beings undergo in an extreme circumstance like war. This study was established with the view that Oh Sangwon's novels were based on nihilism. Critics have evaluated the nihilism in Oh Sangwon’s novels negatively or considered it as an attitude toward life that needs to be overcome. But I recognized the nihilism as a tendency toward the cognition of reality, which Oh Sangwon came to acquire while undergoing the chaos and anxiety after Korean War. Therefore in this paper, with the point of view that it is not proper to criticize nihilism from a negative viewpoint or to consider it as an attitude toward life that needs to be overcome, I treated the nihilism in Oh Sangwon’s novel as a main theme. I studied aspects of nihilism in Oh Sangwon's novels and considered the meaning of the nihilistic cognition of reality.