An Overview and Plot of Choi In-hoon's Korean Novel 'The Square' (Plaza)

The outline of the novel 'The Square'

It is a mid-length novel written by novelist Choi In-hoon, and is the masterpiece of Choi In-hoon's life.

It depicts an individual named Lee Myung-joon, who is destroying the ideological confrontation between the two Koreas against the backdrop of the Korean War right after liberation. Since the April 19 Revolution in 1960, discussions on the theory of unification between the two Koreas have emerged freely, and it is considered the first novel to actively discuss ideological issues between the two Koreas.

You can see how high the novel has in the Korean literary world from being one of the four novels that were repeated on the College Scholastic Ability Test (first in 1994/2006). It is a work that is familiar to high school students as it has been frequently taken on the CSAT and mock tests and has been included in high school literature textbooks and EBS-linked textbooks.

The plot of the novel 'The Square'

The time in the work is only two days in Tagore, and most of the stories are Myung-jun's recollections.

Lee Myung-joon, a South Korean college student, is in trouble because of his father who defected to North Korea, and Myung-joon, who was frustrated by the fact that there was no "square" despite the overflowing secret room, eventually defected to North Korea with his lover Yoon-ae.

However, North Korea also had a square for collectivism, where freedom of expression was extremely limited, but there was no "secret room" for individuals. Myung-jun first entered the Rodong Sinmun by utilizing his major with the power of his father who defected to North Korea, but he was disappointed by these aspects and went to the construction site on purpose. While working, he was injured in an accident and hospitalized, where he meets ballerina Eun-hye, who came to nursing service, and forms a relationship with her new lover Eun-hye as if fleeing from there. Meanwhile, the Korean War broke out, and Myung-jun, who participated as a high-ranking communist officer, had a nightmare of torturing his friend Tae-sik and raping Yoon-ae, who became his friend Tae-sik's wife. (Rape and laugh at himself 'not even demonized')

Yoona, trust me. Trust me naked.

On the Nakdonggang River front, Myung-jun meets the grace of being deployed as a nurse officer again. While spending time alone in a cave there, Eun-hye says she seems to have Myung-jun's daughter, but soon dies of bombing. Since then, Myung-joon, who became a prisoner, will choose to travel to a neutral country, not to South Korea or North Korea. It was because both the South and the North were disappointed, and it was obvious that they would continue to be bullied when they went to South Korea, and Myung-joon himself could not be safe because his father, who is a member of the South Korean party, would be purged when he went to North Korea.

Myeongjun will climb the Tagore heading to India, which is designated as a neutral country. However, Myeong-jun, who was conflicted that he would not find his happiness even in neutral countries, jumps into the blue square, the last space of freedom, recalling grace and his daughter from the images of two seagulls on the deck that were initially considered monitors and tried to shoot them.