안수길의 1950년대 신문소설 연구 - <제2의 청춘>을 중심으로

Research on Ahn Soo-Gil's Newspaper Novels in the 1950s - Focusing on The Second Youth

There have been few approaches to Ahn Soo-gil's newspaper novels and little discussion on his works reflecting life in Seoul. Focusing on this point, the author conducts an analysis of The Second Youth(1957~58). It is the first serial newspaper novel, and its spacial background is Seoul. The discussion is summarized as follows: First, love is in its center of the story. In particular, it is noticeable that light is shed on love of those in their 40s. Entwined with middle-aged people's love, conflict in love experienced by young people in their 20s is depicted in graphic detail. Conflict in love complicatedly entangled between the middle-aged and young generations is the spine of this work, and the main factor drawing public attention. Second, the important context of this work is the defense for agonies felt by the middle-aged generation, and the self-awareness of middle-aged women that they should pursue true love. It is exceptional that women who actively pursue and obtain love appear in the novel in the 1950s. Thanks to these points, this novel gained popularity, drawing attention especially from female readers. Third, this novel well reflects urban life flooded with trends influenced by western cultures such as Hollywood movies and dance boom, depicts women's desire to break away from their daily routine and widespread moneyism by visualizing craze for founding loan clubs, and reveals one of the aspects of post-war capitalism in Korea by setting a fledgling securities company as a spacial background and mentioning the crisis of state bonds. Therefore, this novel effectively reflects post-war life, which is related to the attribute of newspaper novels that focus on current events. Fourth, Ahn Soo-gil emphasized conflict in love, publishing The Second Youth in a serial form. However, he did not pay much attention to the use of popularity factors or continuing techniques. He stressed that newspaper novels should be artistic as well as popular, which means that popularity should be added while maintaining artistic value. Such an attitude can be found in The Second Youth. In conclusion, it is safe to say that Ahn Soo-gil's novels have characteristics to pursue popularity in terms of contents while maintaining artistic value.