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Gender Politics in Alternative History Science Fiction: Critical Reading of Bok Geo-il’s novel "Searching for the Epitaph"

Noh Dae-won 1

1제주대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

Bok Geo-il's Searching for the Epitaph is an alternative history science fiction, one of the important achievements in Korean literatuer in the late 1980s. ealier studies on this novel have focused on elucidating the unfamiliar form. For that reason, these studies have had limitations that colonialism, the central theme of the novel was superficially treated. This paper defines this novel as transrealism literature that transcends the boundaries of reality and fantasy, and presents a critical interpretation that combines postcolonialism a feminist discourse. In this novel, the formal aspects of the fantastic imagination of alternative history, the postmodern arrangement of metafiction and intellectual discourse are to stimulate the contemplation for the coloniality that is piling up contradictions in our society and to explore the possibility of postcolonialism. the main character, Kinoshita Hideyo's struggle to satisfy love desires, social desires, artistic desires, and historical desires is closely related to the problem of masculinity. Japanese women are also the objects that inspire poetic inspiration to him. However, later on, he experiences the frustration of artistic and social desires and love by loss of masculinity. It is similar to his position as a Korean dominated by Japanese empire the position of his national existence as a colonial Korean who is under empire control. Just as empires and colonies are represented as gender relationship, his love for Japanese female Tokie is also frustrated. He He restores his shrunken ethnicity and masculity by murdering a Japanese officer who harassed his wife and daughter. His trip to a provisional government in Shanghi can be seen as a founding myth of modern Korea. Internalized colonial modernity regards the manifestation of masculinity as the best value in connection with totalitarianism and constantly treats women as other. The lost nationality is represented as a woman, and the establishment of a modern nation appears as reinforcement of masculinity. In this sense, the main character is trapped in the desires and limitations of modernity. The existence of a female subaltern can also be seen from a postcolonial standpoint. In this novel, women are the objects of the male character's desire, the source of poetic inspiration, and the metaphor of the colonized country. Their bodies and sexuality are sacrificed between colonial and national discourse.

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