A lonely old potter saves the life of a young woman. She is grateful to him, but does not return the love he feels for her. However she feels obligated to marry him. In time, her former boyfriend finds her and takes a job working with the potter until he can convince her to run away with him.

Chun-hyang, the only daughter of an old gisaeng named Wolmae, falls in love with Lee Mong-nyong and promises to marry him. But Lee leaves for Seoul with his father who's an aristocrat, and the new governor, Byeon Hakdo, covets Chun-hyang because she is the most beautiful girl in town. When Chun-hyang rejects his order to serve him at night, Governor Byeon sends her to jail. In the mean time, Lee passes the state exam and becomes a special undercover agent of the king. He comes back to where Chun-hyang lives to save her and punishes Governor Byeon.

A man tries to raise his two sons and two daughters under some of the most adverse conditions known to man. The father operates a horse-drawn cart, but in a city that is modernizing after the destruction of the Korean War, automobiles are making carts obsolete. The children are experiencing difficulties as well. The eldest son has flunked the bar exam twice and is not hopeful of passing it a third time to become a lawyer. The eldest daughter is mute and married to an abusive husband. The younger daughter tries to pose as a rich university student to move up in life. The youngest son has a penchant for petty theft.

An oriental doctor Kim Hak-gyu is a cantankerous man who is the longest-term householder in a small village in Seoul. He often causes domestic trouble by being nasty to his wife and his children. Kim Hyeon-ok, a daughter of a young widow who runs Nahana Beauty Shop, is in love with Choi Du-yeol, an obstetrician across the street. Kim Hak-gyu has great distaste for western medicine, and at the same time, is jealous of the obstetrician. He always gets in the way of Choi Du-yeol. Kim's son, Hyeon-gu, dates Jeom-ryae, a daughter of a bar owner.

Yeong-shin and Dong-hyuk graduate from college with a cause. They plan to bring education and modernization to farmers living in the rural area of their hometown. When they arrive, the pair immediately get to work, Dong-hyuk builds a village hall and starts aiding the farmers while Yeong-shin tries to gather the children to form a school. However, the villagers at first resent and resist the pair. It is not until one child, Ok-bun, takes the initiative and and learns to read under Yeong-shin’s care that the villages trust the pair and allow their children to be taken from the fields and taught reading, writing and math.

Not long after he married, Yoo Shin has to enter the army leaving behind his wife Jil Rye and daughter Yong Bun. He is taken a prisoner of war in a battlefield. Without knowing this, Jil Rye and Yong-bun firmly hope Yoo Shin's safe return from the war while they overcome temptation, poverty, epidemics and even drought. But an influential man of their village rapes Jil Ryel and Yong Bun. Yoo decides to take revenge.

After her father, failed at stock investment and was shocked to death, a girl enters a textile factory and supports her family. But living on her small salary and repaying her father's debt is too difficult for her. In the end, she tries to kill herself together with her young brother. But only her brother dies, and she, who survives, stands at the bar guilty of patricide. She deserves the death penalty, but the court takes into consideration her circumstances and is generous enough to open up a new road for her to start again. A real-life story.