|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Most Feminine and Feminist
| Article
# : |
11017 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1993 |
3,576 Words |
| Author
: |
Ji Moon Suh
Ji Moon Suh is professor of English at Korea University in
Seoul and has translated numerous Korean short stories into
English. An anthology of her translations, The Rainy Spell and
Other Korean Stories, was published in 1983 by Onyx Press, and
a collection of her personal essays, Faces in the Well,
appeared in 1988. |
I DESIRE WHAT IS FORBIDDEN TO ME
Yang Guy Ja
Seoul: Sallym Publishers, 1992
325 pp.
THE PLACE WHERE THE ORGAN USED TO BE
Shin Kyung Sook
Seoul: Moonhak gwa Jisong Publishers, 1993
304 pp.
While male writers have maintained a tight grip on the literary stronghold, Korea's women writers have been silently carving out their territories wherever they can find them.
The first generation of Korean women writers were brave "new" women, who dared to defy the iron rules of Confucian propriety and make themselves publicly known: They tried not only to emancipate themselves but to help their oppressed sisters find liberation and selfhood. Na Hye Sok, Kim Myung Soon, and Kang Kyung Ae were true pioneers and subversives.
The fate of Na Hye Sok (1896-1946?) explains the circumspection of the next two or three generations of Korean women writers. Primarily a painter, Na wrote short stories in her early twenties calling on Korean women to awaken to the indignity of dependent life and urging them to seek human dignity and self-fulfillment through a hardworking, self-determining life.
But she became more famous for her suspected sexual licenses than as a painter or a writer. Her diary shows that up to her late thirties she tried hard to remain loyal to her wifely and maternal roles in spite of the many humiliations and frustrations of her unhappy marriage. It is hard to tell what was the nature and extent of her "free love," but she came to be known as a shameless voluptuary who used her artistic pretensions as an excuse for her sexual abandon. She is believed to have died on the street, a destitute beggar.
Na Hye Sok was often used as a warning, even a reproach, to young women with literary or artistic aspirations. "Do you want to become another Na Hye Sok?" was a frequent reprimand to daughters and younger sisters.
Becoming a woman writer thus required tremendous courage, and to survive as one required careful strategies. One such strategy is to limit oneself to "feminine" subjects
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
