Abstract

Park Wanseo was a writer who consistently represented the urbanized and capitalized daily life in modern Korean history. A historical consciousness stemming from her own experiences as a daughter's position given by mother--moving into the city of Seoul and living through the Korean War-- lied in her literary text. A suburbanite("moonbak") consciousness was an origin in which combinated a desire for settlement in Seoul with keeping her distance from Seoul. This ambiguous consciousness had influenced on her observation and literary representation on Seoul. The fearful experience of Korean War transformed her space-consciousness into both a desire for rootage in Seoul and her disgust at Seoul. The urbanized and capitalized daily life which she adhered to in 1970s-80s' many novels and short stories, was based on such a historical experiences and paradoxical consciousness. At a casual glance, her literary texts seems to be obedient to the logics of capitalism. But Her texts shows that the urbanization stemmed not from urban policy of government but from ugly values and selfish desire throughout historical experiences of the struggle for existence in the Korean War. They were involved with a critical consciousness about Korean rapid urbanization and vulgar capitalistic reality which make forget their history, extinguish diverse experiences, cause placelessness of city and force to lose beautiful memories of nature.