The early novels in modern Korea suggest the new organization of individual, society, and nation. The common narrative of those novels is the collapse and reconstruction of domestic sphere, and its important agents are feminine characters. As the word 'nation[國家]' already shows the intricacy of 'nation[國] and 'family [家], the domestic affair in 1910's novels implies the figural configuration of nation. The figure was metaphorical at the beginning-the king is like a father, and the people like sons and daughters, or all of them are brothers and sisters-, but the metonymic imagination was also competitive for 1900's. Metonymy asserts the aspect of combination, then the metonymic figure of nation is the collectiveness of families. 'The model family was required for national development, and the educated woman was demanded for mxiel family. Even though the metaphorical imagination functioned at the fundamental level, the metonymy opened up the way to discovery of individual and private existence. That individuality was distoned since the annexation in 1910, but it demands another explanation.