Set primarily on Jeju Island and spanning decades of post-war Korean history

the Korean drama

When Life Gives You Tangerines

takes Jeju haenyeo culture and rural social customs as its cultural backdrop. Centering on the lives of grassroots civilians

it depicts ordinary people's struggles and companionship amid hardships against the backdrop of modern social transformation

poverty and gender oppression in Republic of Korea. Focusing on the life trajectories of three generations of Jeju women

the drama constructs dual narratives of intergenerational uplift and female community

breaking the singular narrative mode centered on individual female awakening in traditional female-themed works.Adopting feminist narratology as the core theoretical framework

this study integrates textual analysis

interdisciplinary research and case study methods to systematically analyze the female narrative strategies of the drama from four dimensions: narrative context

narrative space

narrative perspective and narrative structure. The research reveals that the drama realizes intergenerational inheritance among three generations of women through economic support

emotional inheritance and transfer of life decision-making rights

forming a progressive intergenerational development model from the sacrifice-oriented generation

resistance-oriented generation to independence-oriented generation.Moreover

the shaping of Yang Kwang-sik as a male ally of women pioneers a new narrative paradigm for female-themed audiovisual works in East Asia. This drama also reflects the universal dilemma of East Asian women balancing self-actualization and family obligations

as well as their inner aspiration to transform traditional sacrifice-based intergenerational relations into equal and mutually supportive ones.