One Lucky Day
| Author | Hyun Jin-geon |
|---|---|
| Language | Korean |
| Genre | realistic fiction |
One Lucky Day is a 1924 realistic novel written by Hyun Jin-geon,[1] first published at <개벽>.[2]
It was adapted as a feature film by EBS, released in 2014.[2]
Plot
One rainy day, 'good luck' comes to the rickshaw man old Kim, who has not seen money for ten days because of bad luck. He was able to get two customers and earn 80 jeon, just in the morning.
While going back home, glad that he could buy the Seolleongtang that his ill wife, who had been ill since a few days ago, wanted so much, he met a student who paid 1 won and 50 jeon for a ride.
However, even as he is pulling the rickshaw joyfully because of his amazing luck, the words of his wife, "Please do not go out today," leaves a heavy feeling on his chest. Nevertheless, after making another round of negotiations with his guests and earning money, he visits the roadside bar to retain the joy of this miraculous moneymaking.[3]
As he get drunk in the lively atmosphere of a warm bar, old Kim tries to throw out his ominous thoughts about his wife, throwing away the 'resentful money' and crying and laughing like crazy.
At last, when old Kim, who was drunk heavily, comes to the house after buying the Seolleongtang, his wife was already dead and only his baby who was sucking the empty nipple of his wife was waiting for him. Old Kim’s oddly fortunate day ends with him crying out alone because of the death of his wife.[4]
Characters
Old Kim
Old man Kim (Kim Cheomji) is a poor rickshaw man who has a family of a wife and one son. He is violent, cursing and hitting his wife. But he also loves his wife a lot, buying seolleongtang for his wife, and mourning at his wife’s death. He represents the miserable life of the poor in <One lucky day>.
Kim's wife
She is a wife of a poor rickshaw man, and is ill. She couldn’t eat anything for a long time, and her last wish before death was eating selleongtang. However, she couldn’t fulfill her wish.
Setting
“One Lucky Day” is a novel published in 1924, which is set in Seoul during the Japanese forced occupation of Korea. The lives of people who were living in Seoul at that time, and the appearance of Seoul is written inside the novel.
Modern day Seoul
Seoul during the 1920s was starting to turn into a modern city. Modern factories, schools, and hospitals were starting to form around Seoul. This is noticeable in “One lucky day”, as the rickshaw that Kim is driving was a popular form of transportation, because the citizens of Seoul during the 1920s needed an easy-to-use transportation due to their busy everyday life. The fact that there were already train rails and stations, and the fact that there were modern schools and hospitals is also written inside the novel.[5]
Life of the lower class citizens
However, while the settings of “One Lucky Day” was Seoul, a modern city, Hyun Jin-geon focuses on the daily life of lower class citizens in the story, and how harsh it was. In the story, Kim conflicts between earning money to sustain life, and looking after his dying wife. This shows the pitiful life of lower class citizens during the Japanese forced occupation, who couldn’t do much and had to go out and earn money, even when their wife was dying.[5]
The setting of “One Lucky Day”, Seoul, was already starting to become a modern city during the 1920s. However, there were still a lot of people working hard to survive day by day. There were a lot of “Kim”s out there, living difficultly. Seoul was full of lower class citizens who were tormented by poverty, and this poverty is the problem that Hyun Jin-geon, along with other realism authors at that time, tried to point out with the settings of their stories.[5]
Literacy significance and criticism
This novel is a work that is very precisely structured toward a single focus, in which its tragic effects are revealed by irony.
Also, the background of the rain is set very methodically. The image of the uncontrollable winter rain that is constantly reminded is not only a functional background to illustrate the death of his wife, but also symbolizes the gloomy environment in which Kim is located. It represents the poor life of the lower classes in the colonial city.
This shows that the author is not idealizing reality, but is rather grasping its true form. In the end, Kim is not a special individual, but a representative of the suffering colonial people. The creation of a personality typology such as Kim was also in the context of the rise of the sympathetic literature (New Trends Literature), which mainly dealt with the lives of the people in the mid-1920s.
Also, paying attention to the literary transformation of the author, this work was the starting point of clearing out his early autobiographical novels centered on the intellectuals, facing the reality of the colonialism and pursuing the destiny of the populace, the greatest victim of colonialism. Above all, this work has the most appropriate combination of social consciousness and ironic short - form style out of all the novels written by Hyun_Jin-geon.[4]
Film adaption
In 2014, <연필로 명상하기>, EBS, Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc, released a film version of three korean literature, <When buckwheat flowers bloom>, <Spring Spring>, and <One Lucky Day>. It was directed by Jae Hoon Ahn and Hye-jin Han.
It was selected as the opening film at Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival.[6]
References
- ↑ "Hyun Jin-geon". Wikipedia. 2017-11-27.
- 1 2 "운수 좋은 날". 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전 (in Korean). 2017-10-16.
- ↑ "한국학중앙연구원". www.aks.ac.kr (in Korean). Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- 1 2 "민족문화대백과사전". encykorea.aks.ac.kr. Retrieved 2017-11-30.
- 1 2 3 강연준 (2013), 국어선생님도 궁금한 101가지 문학질문사전, 북멘토, p.380, ISBN 9788963190907
- ↑ "메밀꽃, 운수 좋은 날, 그리고 봄봄". 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전 (in Korean). 2017-08-28.