박경리 초기 장편소설 연구

Abstract

This dissertation studies from the feminist perspective some of the early novels of Kyungri Park, one of the noted female writers in the country. She did not claim to advocate feminism based on women's liberation. However, taking into account the fact that most of her works have the narrative involving female characters and the guiding motif is the discrimination and repression against women which is derived from the traditional patriarchy, it is fairly apparent to notice the writer's point of view adhering to the critical stance against the male-dominated society Therefore this thesis is aimed at exploring how the patriarchal ideology which oppresses and controls human beings is embodied in her literary works and what impact it has on the process of identity formation of women and men. The subjects of study include "A Drifting island(표류도)"(1959), "Saint and Witch(성녀와 마녀)"(1960-1961), "The Field Glow with the Setting Sun(노 을 진 들녘)"(1961-1962), "Kim's Daughters(김약국의 딸들)"(1962), "Market and Theater of War(시장과 전장)"(1964), and "Seasonal Fish Market(파 시)"(1964-1965). In the first instance, this study investigated how the identity of women had been damaged and how women's body had been repressed and had become the other in a society where patriarchal hierarchy was enforced. It is found that the postwar society was a violent one where women could only be regarded as significant beings in the relationships with men, and therefore seeking independence by self-supporting was denied to those unprotected by men and women as the weak were even degenerated into sexual objects. Park uses the strategy which paradoxically engraves the human dignity and the value of life by adopting death as a device to report the anti-lifeness of the male dominance system. In addition, as she lived through the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War, her literary journey continued its path during the time of loss and turmoil where the existence itself as a national community was uncertain, which caused the masculinity to weaken and wither. As a result, male characters in her novels failed to take root in the realistic life and constantly agonized and debated, and eventually they showed a weak attitude to confine themselves in isolation and alienation. The author requests her characters to stay out of the frame of the contemporary dominant discourses in order to escape from the trajectory of patriarchal ideology which suppresses the freedom of human beings. Thus she suggests her own solution to respond to the patriarchal society considered as unavoidable. In particular, the depiction of the women active in leaping over the social conventions and prejudices was the first step to overcome the internalized otherness for a long period of time. As they were weathering the severe ordeals such as the anxiety about their own survival and the despair brought by irrational society, they were being portrayed as independent subjects recovering the damaged and disparaged self and value of women. As Kyungri Park recognizes the men-women relationship not as incompatible but as complementary, she is in the position that if isolated from men, women's problems will not be solved. And she therefore emphasizes on the need for mutually beneficial relation through reconciliation and coexistence in order to form desirable identity between men and women as well as to solve women's problems. Thus the patriarchal society described in Park's novels has secured a significant spot in the history of literature in that it provides a barometer to address women's problems by not only reporting the harmful effects of male-dominated society but also suggesting their solutions.