Browsing by Author "Aulaskari, Ninamari"

In my master’s thesis, I analyse the North Korean novel Friend by Paek Nam-nyong. The novel was first published in Pyongyang in 1988 and it became the first North Korean novel translated into English in 2020. The book tells the story of a married couple going through a hard time and petitioning for a divorce. A Superior Court Judge, Jeong Jin Wu, decides to investigate the couple’s marital problems and becomes determined to solve them. He feels that, as a judge, while he wants to do his job properly and do right by the people seeking to end their miserable marriages, he also feels responsible for pulling threads and unravelling the social fabric of the whole nation. The goal of my analysis is to explore the presentation of interpersonal relationships and what an individual’s duty and positioning are in North Korean society as presented in Friend. To be able to put Friend in its proper historical context, it is important to understand North Korea’s literary history and what position writers serve in the country. In the literary review, I explain the history of North Korean literature and how Soviet influences have shaped the country’s literary policy, and then go over some of the most commonly used themes and storytelling techniques present in fiction. In my analysis, I employ the methods of close reading and historicization to examine the presentation of interpersonal relationships in relation to the state, and how the breaking down of a nuclear family is also presented as the breakdown of a cohesive social order and therefore, society. The novel places a lot of emphasis on the duties and responsibilities individuals have to be able to live prosperous lives and contribute to the economy. Those who fail to follow the call of the Party-promoted economic campaign are confronted and given the chance to redeem themselves. Friend gives a fascinating glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens, whose roles in the story reflect the larger societal context and what an individual’s positioning is in the North Korean society.