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A Study on Chae Man Sik’s Rewriting of Mother — Centered on the (Anti)Initiation of a Male Character

Yu Inhyeok 1

1동국대학교 한국문학연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study inspects Chae Man Sik’s political (un)conscious and its way of fictionalizing Mother and its revised works The War Story of a Woman and The Life of a Woman. It focuses particularly on the male character Junho, since his role and function has been underestimated in previous studies. To date, analyses of the three texts have focused on the female character Jinju (Sukhi). The status of her family members are unrevealed in Mother. However, Jinju becomes a daughter of a military officer that participated in the Russo-Japanese war (The War Story of a Woman) and a daughter of a patriot revolutionist (The Life of a Woman). This difference is regarded as the key point of the texts. This study, however, focuses on Junho, the husband of Jinju, as the most converted character in the three novels. In the three texts, the sufferings of the women are monotonic. On the other hand, Junho’s initiative story experiences dramatic change. In Mother, the initiative narrative exists. However, it vanishes in The War Story of a Woman. Lastly, it is reintroduced in The Life of Woman. The consequence of this is a dramatic changing of plots. The important fact is that each text shows a different political context. In Mother, the text hints that Junho can become the subject of enlightenment by overcoming the old customs, as symbolized as the mother. In The War Story of a Woman, however, the chance of success vanishes. Lastly, The Life of a Woman intentionally presents an ambiguous ending. This leads to the conclusion that the rewriting of Mother was actually a process of de-politicalizing the texts, and not the other way around.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.