In The 1990s, The Korean Real Theme Of The Novel Study

During 1990s, with the socialist camp hit by the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and Disintegration of the Soviet Union, North Korea entered her trough period. The economical hardship together with the pass-away of the Chairman Kim Il Sung led North Korea in the period of post 90s, which is called the period of 'Suffering March' or 'Forced March.' North Korea is much emphasized on the social reflection and social cognition function of literature. Therefore, the ideology of literature plays a strong leading influence in this country. In the new historical moment, North Korean literature, as the ideological weapon, is definitely going to show its new features.Academics have been separated into positive and negative criticisms about North Korean literature. This thesis is based on North Korean reality theme novels; by comparing to 80s', this thesis is trying to study the ideological and artistic features of the novels, the purpose of which is to get rid of simple and un-objective criticisms, and to show the in-depth and meticulous features of North Korean Literature in 90s. For some reasons, the relative information about the literature in this period is not sufficient, and the study on many phenomenon occurred in this period is also immature. Thus, as the basic study on this subject, this thesis is expected to be a strong supplement to the study on North Korean literature in this period.In Chapterâ… , the object, the scope, the method and the significance of the study are stated.In Chapterâ…¡, the features of North Korean reality theme novels in 1990s are stated in 5 parts.The first part is mainly the analysis of the realistic novel, which is represented by The Wish of the Era.Realistic novel is one of the fast developing genres in this period. The hero of The Wish of the Era is a foreigner; the novel applied "Third Party Highlighting" - the special performance practice which had been used only in the leader-depicting works. This performance practice runs through the full story to achieve the effect of 'trickily getting praised by the third party.' The novel shows compound figure structure and story. When analyzing the figures and story structure by using the Greimas's role theory, The Wish of the Era is proved to have been using a lot of promoters and opponents, and yet the power of the opponents is far weaker than that of promoters, and also, the role of the leader is pulled back behind the scene as the sponsor. Such a structure of figures and story is the important reason to achieve 'trickily getting praised by the third party.'The second part mainly analyses about ideology of the reality novels other than realistic novels.All of these novels, which are represented by Aspire, Joy, etc., express 'the Spirit of Defending the Red Flag', which refers to the spirit of defending socialist system and socialist nations. And this indicates the North Korean mainstream literature in this period is too much emphasizing on the utilitarian of literature.The third part is about the features of the heroes in the reality theme novels like Aspire, Joy, etc.Most of the leading characters of the reality theme novels in 80s are so-called Unknown Heroes -who works hard for the people and the nation in average positions with no much recognition. However, it has changed a lot in 90s. The leading figures of 90s are no longer 'little'; they have changed into the leaders in national enterprises. And this change has the close connection to the economic depression of North Korea and international circumstances in the 90s.The forth part analyses the figure structure of the reality theme novels like Aspire, Joy, etc.Comparing to 80s, the novels in this period indicates much more complicated connections between figures; the conflicts between figures are also much more intense. These comprehensive figure structures are able to improve the artistic expression.The fifth part is the analysis on the story structure of the reality theme novels like Aspire, Joy, etc.The reality theme novels in the 90s show quite similar plots, which reflects North Korean literature being simple and stylized.Chapterâ…¢is the summery of the thesis.In general, under the extraordinary social and historical situation in 1990s, North Korean reality theme novels show the "Spirit of Defending Red Flag" in ideology, and in artistic expression, these works try to apply compound figure structure and also try to avoid the referral of leader role. The features of the leading characters are differentiated from those of 80s; yet the leader character still controls the direction of the story in critical scenes, from which it's clear that North Korean novels still haven't overcome the leader-worship tendency. Also, the similar story structures indicate that North Korean novels in this period still tend to be scripting and stylized.