When Pak Kyongni debuted, she said "If I had been happy, I would have not begun writing."[9] Park also said later, "I live with my mother and daughter and had to support them financially by myself. I began writing since I had hope to get away from my adversity." Her sorrowful personal life surely influenced her works, where she emphasized human dignity.
Pak started her career as a writer with the novel, Calculations (계산, Gyesan) and her early work was heavily guided by her unfortunate life. Each narrator in her novels like Time of distrust (불신시대, Bulsin Sidae) and Time of Darkness (암흑시대, Amheuk Sidae) are often a daughter living with her mother who lost her husband and son, which was true with her own life. In her later work, The Daughters of Pharmacist Kim (김약국의 딸들, Kimyakgukui Ttaldeul), she still deals with characters who get over with their difficulties.[10] However, she got more objective point of view in that her fictional setting moved from the Korean war to everyday life and employed more various writing techniques and topics.
Pak showed the importance of human dignity in all her works. She defined human dignity as protecting the noblest thing for oneself. She criticized a tradition, a system, and authority which cause people not to protect their dignity, and also disdained people who lost their dignity because of their desires. Additionally, her works are concerned with human isolation, absolute trust in love.
