Relationship of the main characters and the image of Paris in Park Shin-Yang’s Sweetheart

Abstract

This article aims to study the image of a metropolitan city on the relationship of the main characters in Park Shin-Yang’s Sweetheart. This research applies the approach about the interaction of urban people and images of the city.  The results of the study revealed that the location dimension is important to the plot and connected to the relationships of the characters.  In this novel Sweetheart, Seoul is a place that traps male characters in the confines of family, career and social image. He broke away from Korean traditions so living in Paris was his freedom. Truly, places and the social conditions of those places have meanings that reflect the people who live there. But in the end, the characters who seek freedom by changing locations are unable to find true freedom. That was because he chose to escape again and confined himself to the woman he loved who had run away from him. Therefore, the places in Paris for him became a memory box. It was a trap from which he could not escape and he still had to be stuck in the loop of searching for love forever.