Land Reform Topics Of The North - South Korean Literature Comparative Study

on August15,1945with unconditional surrender of Japan, the Korean peninsula was liberated. Russia and America occupied the Korean peninsula by the "38th parallel", during which time the opposition formed. In initial stage of liberation, under the double oppression of feudal land system and Japan’s colonial control, Korean farmers strongly demanded for land reform with dissatisfaction for the economy. Feudal land ownership, which was the economic foundation of the landlord class as well as the root cause of farmers’poverty not only hindered the development of agricultural productivity, but severely restrained for the development of other departments. Therefore the most urgent thing for the North Korea’s economic and social development was the land reform.Land reform is imperative for the liberation of north Korea, which reflected the contemporary Korean farmers urgent needs. The writer Lee Ki-young and Hwang Soon-Won interpreted the literally visualized historical events of the time from different social concepts. On the comparison of the two novels "The Land" and "The Descendents of Cain", through the research of the tendency on works’ recreation, the character images, and the creative traits, these two novels objectively represented the authentic scene of the land reform. Besides the comparison of the masterpieces from two writers with complete different concept and ideology, restored the real picture of the Korean farmers during the land reform period.After the liberation of the Korean peninsula in1945, because of the abruption in ideology and long-standing ethnic separatist, the north and south of Korea with the same root produced different systems of literary history and literary values. Accordingly through comparative study of the north and the south Korean land reform novels, premising on the academic subject of the "unified literature", this paper will cogitate about the approach on the study of literary history of the Korean peninsula.Studying on the similarity and difference of land reform novel from the two distinguished writers, Lee Ki-young and Hwang Soon-Won, this paper will attempt to find out the practical significance of novels on the land reform events. thus the parallel comparative study method is selected.During the creative process, Lee Ki-young and Hwang Soon-Won, the two famous writers in north Korea and South Korea with different concepts, drew the disparted outline of the literary historical development of north Korea and South Korea. Due to the different ideological recognition, they made the literary sketches on the same historical event objectively from different angles.It was observed that the national and abroad study on the works of Lee Ki-young and Hwang Soon-Won had made a certain progress, but in the field of comparative study the land reform novels still stay in the foundation stage. therefore, basing on the comprehensive analysis from the writer’s creation tendency and technique,this paper will study how the authors reflected the land reform events in literary works. through the comparison of the works, the paper will re-examine the reality conveyed by the characters and narrative in the novels, which will bring the practical significance for the historical study on the north-South Korea’s unification.This paper is divided into the following five parts.The first chapter is introduction, which is based on the former research, consists of research purpose and significance, object of the study and research method.The second chapter is about the study on North Korean and South Korean novels reflecting the agrarian reform in initial post-liberation period. This part analyses the causes of the prevailing novels on agrarian reform and their characteristics in this period in North and South Korea. Through the analysis, we can find epoch-making changes to the entire Korea brought by their huge revolution. The peasants got rid of the bondage of feudal exploitation system and became the real master of the country, which changed their destiny. The sweeping transformation offered the writers plenty of material. Numerous novels on agrarian reform emerged in Korean literary circles. In contrast, land reform carried out by American government did not change the poor living condition in South Korea. What’s more, it aggravated peasants’burdens and they lived in a misery. Therefore, the novels reflecting land reform is all about criticism of hypocrisy of liberation, peasants’craving for lands, aspiration for agrarian reform in North Korea and unscrupulous levy collected by American and South Korean government. This part focuses on the novels reflecting agrarian reform in North and South Korean literary circles in initial post-liberation period.The third chapter focuses on the themes. Comparing the tendencies of the creation between "The Land" and "The Descendents of Cain", this part analyses the differences and similarities between the two novels on the themes and characters etc, which grasped the authenticity and objectivity of social reality in the novels in the period of agrarian reform.After Korea War in1953and the consolidation of38th Parallel, Korean peninsula was divided into north and south, two independent countries, North Korea and South Korea. The writers from the two countries which have different ideologies created their respective master pieces "The Land" and "The Descendents of Cain". On the basis of the characteristics of the times, the writers’experiences, and the creation purpose.They created different kinds of characters, analyze the differences of the novels on agrarian reform and explain the reasons, which expects to provide a new perspective. As the socialist left-wing writer, Lee Ki-young sees the peasants obtained the land after freeing from the long time feudal oppression. He wrote the novel The Land, which reflects the dramatic change and is one of the most successful works on Korean agrarian reform. This novel reflects the achievements of the land reform in the period of change and historical significance of the land reform. In addition, The Land tells about the collapse of the feudal forces in the countryside, emphasizes the leadership of the communist party. The importance of the characters and the complex characters in the novels on agrarian reform is differentiated because of the different functions and roles.The fourth chapter focuses the comparative analysis on the similarities and differences between the two novels from the perspective of their artistic characteristics. The study is on the comparative analyzing from the setting of relationships among the characters and their contradictions, writhing techniques and artistic expressions.Through analyzing, the settings of the relationships among the characters are not absolutely consistent, but they adopt the same triangle structure of the relation, that is, landlord-peasant-dreamboat. In terms of the disputes and conflicts, under the background of land reform, the class contradictions and love contradictions appear alternately, it represents a strong sense of realism and epochal character. However, the experiences and purposes of authors are different, so that the images of the characters are different. Lee Ki-young focuses on the expression of the times, and eulogizes the advancement and superiority of the land reform. His words indicate the expression of the aggressive spirit of the peasants for throwing themselves into the construction of a new socialist countryside, and looking forward a happier life; on the contrary, Hwang Soon-Won express his idea based on the implement of the land reform, when there comes the conflict on the benefits, the people’s moral bottom line will be exhaustive break down, the greedy desire will beat the harmony. Thereby, from simply indicating the land reform sublimates to the denied the rejection of the social politics and ideology. The work shows that using humanistic care to solve the estrangement among people, and expresses a refine of humanity.In addition, the separately study of writhing techniques and artistic expressions of the two novels are on the process. The land reform in North Korea is a historical moment which leads the literature differences in Korean peninsula after its division. Novels which created on the basis of the land reform are the socialist literature that lives on the socialism. Lee Ki-young focuses on the writing techniques of socialist realism and Hwang Soon-Won focuses on the writing techniques of criticizing socialist realism, it announces the positive and negative influences to the peasants of the land reform. The two novels adopt the writing technique of realism; they fully reflecting the social presence of Korea on its initial post-liberation period with different expression. One is from the perspective of eulogizing and the other is criticizing; one beautifies the countries under the land reform and the other uglifies. This kind of method is an expression of negation of the real world. Different writhing techniques influence the ending of the works,"The Land" gets a happy ending but "Descendents of Cain" ends in the protagonist leave his home after punish the two landlords and cross the Korean Demilitarized Zone. This is due to the opposite ideologies of the authors.The fifth chapter concludes the content in the former chapters, it discusses the similarities and differences between the two novels and its reasons as a conclusion of this paper.