Abstract

This study has the purpose of considering in depth the repeated cultural codes of freedom shown in Park Boem-Shin's popular novels of the 1970s. In his text, cultural codes of freedom include ambition towards success and the city, and also the desire against civilization and city as a reflection of the two ambitions mentioned. The characters of the text then do not take a direct path towards their ambition of success. They go through a mediator. Although his novels desire the disillusionment of city and success, they are contemporaneously bound to them. Thus his novels are captive to his readers by the dominance of the ruling ideology, but also follow the narrative strategy of popular novels in which such bounds are deconstructed internally to provide the cultural experience to desire true freedom metaphysically. Therefore readers might willingly become the standardized individual the country demands. They might also acknowledge the fact that they should restrain their liberty and political freedom, then to strengthen their self-discipline. On the other hand, the reader may interpret into overthrowing the ideology itself.