[3] Park entered Seoul National University, but dropped out almost immediately after attending classes due to the outbreak of the Korean War and the death of her brother.

[5] The novelist Jung Yi-hyun wrote in her memorial letter, "You will know how much hope it is for the many female writers that the fact that there is a Park Wan-suh in Korean paragraphs."

The turbulence of the age she lived through is preserved in such works as The Naked Tree, Warm Was the Winter That Year (Geuhae gyeoureun ttatteuthaennae, 1983), Mother's Stake I (Eommaui malttuk I, 1980), and Mother's Garden (Eommaui tteul, 1981), depictions of families torn apart by the war and the heavy price the war continues to exact from its survivors.

While the daughter's active attempts to overcome the ordeal of her life provides a positive contrast to her mother's attitude of resignation, the work nonetheless reveals the severity of the damages, both psychical and material, sustained by the survivors of the war, and the difficulty of achieving genuine healing.

In these works, acts of individual avarice and snobbery are linked to larger social concerns such as the breakdown of age-old values and dissolution of the family.

[10] In 1980s, Park turned increasingly toward problems afflicting women in patriarchal society while continuing to engage with the lives of middle-class Koreans.

Such works as The Beginning of Days Lived (Sarainneun nareui sijak, 1980), The Woman Standing (Seo inneun yeoja, 1985) and The Dreaming Incubator (Kkum kkuneun inkyubaeiteo, 1993) belong to this group.