In the modern Korean novel, there i

In the modern Korean novel, there is prevalence of the present in the predicative verbs narrating action, much more so than in the modern European novel. A Korean novel published in 1932 begins like this: "With all his things packed for tomorrow's departure, Dukki stands on the steps to his room and hears his grandfather talking.. Compare this with the beginning of a typical Western novel: "In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains/5 This difference in the tense is of course due in part to the peculiarities of the languages concerned and also to the method of presentation the respective writers adopted, either as a whole or in the particular passages we have chosen as examples. The Korean example obviously relies more on the scenic method of plunging into the middle of action without delay. Nevertheless, the prevalence of the present tense can be observed throughout the novel from which the above example is taken, and other modern Korean novels as well. Ultimately, the fact can be explained only in reference to the larger context surrounding the shift in the narrative mode from the traditional tales to the modern novel.