Greenroom

A Society That Drives One to Drink

Hyun Jin-geon, 1921 · Original title: 술 권하는 사회

Seoul in the early 1920s. A husband who studied all the way through university in Tokyo has come home, yet instead of earning a living he returns late at night, drunk. His wife, who in seven or eight years of marriage has spent barely a year at his side, sits sewing past one in the morning, waiting for him. Who, she wonders, keeps pressing the drink on him?

the frustration of intellectuals under colonial rulethe gap between a modern-educated husband and a traditional wifehow a society can shape an individual's unhappiness

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Public domain: the author died in 1943 and the work was published in 1921, so its copyright has ended in Korea, the US and the EU. Everything written here is our own; no translation is copied.

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Characters

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  • 아내 The Wife She waited years for her husband to return from Tokyo. Tonight, once again, he hasn't come home. Main character Appears in part 1
  • 남편 The Husband He came home with a Tokyo university degree, but lately he only returns late at night, drunk. Main character Appears in part 1

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처음 ~ 빈 이불을 들추고 울 듯이 부르짖기까지

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Part 2

남편이 취해 돌아오는 장면 ~ 끝

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