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The Memory of Violence and the Community of Philia - With Focus on Legato by Gwon Yeo-seon -

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2014, (54), pp.287~317
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : June 30, 2014
  • Accepted : August 4, 2014

Kim EunHa 1

1경희대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

Gwon Yeo-seon has so far interpreted “memory” not as an evidence ofpathology but as ardent and volitional aspirations for “maturity” by mainlyfeaturing figures who are fixed on the past and has thus showed thequintessence of trauma writing, which are all culminated in Legato (ChangbiPublishers, 2012). The literary works by Gwon are categorized as“reminiscences literature” —which was later established as the ethos ofliberalist literature after the 1980s— in that they portrayed the generations ofrevolutions who are obsessed with the specter of the past. Her literature,however, stands at the location of disintegrating generational narcissism andthe ethos of ‘self-authenticity” that supports it. It is because her literatureparodies reminiscences literature in a feminist style by twisting and disturbingthe authenticity of the memory through the medium of the body and thegender of women who have suffered injuries from the ideological community. Gwon’s writing reflects the generational self-consciousness of the womenin the 1970s and the 1980s who had broken away from the norm of“institutional femininity” in order to destroy the biological destiny of thesocial bondage of “gender.” They enter into the arena of politics and seekfor a friendly community which is overcoming the differences of gender as if they would not get caught by the institution of heterosexuality such asfamily, motherhood, a mode of domestic production, and reproduction. Notonly the modern state but also the ideological community that emerged as itsalternative, however, has been deprived of their chances for maturity becausethey stuck to the principle of immanence and self-identity and therebydisrespected the differences of body and gender. The author, however, doesnot see the frustration over the establishment of political identity as a failure. Rather, she seeks for the narrativization of the frustration paradoxically as anopportunity to establish a political community that is ethically responsible forthe others and holds a sense of relationship by acknowledging theweaknesses of the subject. In the process, the body is by no means inferior to reason but — insofaras it is understood that one is bound to the pain of the others — isre-signified as an ethical foundation on which a subject can overcome thefirst person-oriented behavioral subjectivity. We can be a behavioral subjectbecause we have a body, but, reversely, can be exposed to the violence ofthe others and get hurt. The body is the point of contact with the others butis irresistibly exposed to the decision of the others. The author implies thatthe “relationship” is the essence of our subjectivity by showing that theassailant of violence is not always the painless victor. As she criticized thatfriendship — having been regarded as the qualification for men’s refinement— had lost its corporeality and had been too excessively ideology-oriented,Gwon suggests the establishment of a new political community that respects the body and the gender of the others. In this process, Gwangju in May1980 is not a location of state violence but a stage of ritual where peoplecan reconcile together by mourning the others whose image they cannoteasily wipe out in their memories.

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