오정희 소설에 나타난 모성 정체성의 수행 양상 -「유년의 뜰」, 「중국인 거리」, 「바람의 넋」을 중심으로-

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore the performance of maternal identity in Oh Jung-hee’s War Trilogy. Each piece tells the story of a war situation, a post-war situation, and a character suffering from the memories of war. In particular, the artist carefully depicts the process by which ‘women’ become aware of themselves as historical and social beings through the intense experience and memory of war. We utilized Judith Butler's theory of performativity to understand how women's identities are structured differently throughout history. In particular, we focused on the variable construction of women's gendered identities, especially motherhood, and asked how this identity is performed in the context of war and motherhood. When the particularities and conventions of war collide, repetition can be endlessly reproduced by citing the past, which is explored in 「A garden in one's childhood」. We will also analyze the ways in which motherhood is mobilized and performed in the new ideology of a war-torn country through 「Chinese Streets」, and unravel the ways in which sexuality is constructed and controlled in 1980s society through 「The soul of the Wind」, in which a female character, traumatized by the inescapable memory of war, navigates her way through society. Through this, I summarize why Oh Jung hee's maternal performance can be read simultaneously as an opposition to dominant power and a co-opting of dominant discourse through Butler's account of agency. The reason why it is meaningful for a female character who suffered from the violence of war to be converted from a practitioner to a subject is because it shows the possibility that women themselves seek to resist and overthrow institutions and power, even if they are in the process