A Study of Song Byeong-su's "SETAE" Novels

송병수의 세태소설 연구

If it can be said that the "SETAE"(세태) Novels, in accordance with the propounded principles of literary naturalism, have a tendency to take interest in the dark sides of life, Song Byeong-su is none other than the writer who faithfully follows the tendency. His main focus lies on individual's everyday ordinary lives with, if ever, little interest in society and history: ideals indispensable for historical advancement are missing in his works. Rather, they are full of lack of ideals in which a trivialist vision blossoms. Instead of rejecting presenting pictures replete with the ideals of life, he through providing the individuals and extremely trivial themes to the reader, he requires us to share the universal human sufferings found in society and view society critically as an arena where lots of bloodings, struggles, sufferings and injustices still exist. Thus, we call Song a writer who committed himself to the mission of "untrivializing the trivial." In this vein, this article categorizes Song's works under heading of "SETAE(세태) Novels" and studies their characteristics as 세태 Novels. For the detailed analytical purpose, this article divides his works into two groups of works: while the works dealing with many facets of lives during the Korean War, in which the author's compassion toward the wretched war-stricken people's lives are being demonstrated belong to the first group, the works dealing with the post War lives belong to the second group. The second group is also subcategorized into two small groups: the first group takes interest in the people's lives connected with the war both directly and indirectly, in which the veterans returned from the battlefield are struggling to adjust themselves to society, and the war widows and orphans's make efforts for survival. Whereas, the second group focuses on the lives of people who are immune to trauma inflicted from the war, in which various social problems emerge: poor people trade their conscience for small amount of money, jobless people cannot marry due to poverty, conflicts between generations and ethical depravity deepen, and "the strong still keep devouring the weak."