20세기 열녀 담론과 한국 영화에 나타난 열녀 표상의 의미

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the ways that the visual representations were formed through the discourses on virtuous women and Korean movies which have virtuous women motifs in the 20th century. Especially in Korean movies of the late twentieth century, virtuous women were represented problematically as young women with beautiful bodies and sexual desire, as oppose to the discourses in the colonial times of the early 20th century. In colonial period, Confucianism that forced young widow to be a virtuous woman was strongly criticized. On the other hand, modern intellectuals discovered and considered the feature of the romantic love and sacrificial motherhood as the modern values that were inherent in the stories on virtuous women. 20th Century Korean movies described virtuous women as the results of the upper-class men’s monopoly of sex and reproduction. The narratives of these movies were designed by the desire of lower-class men. In Bound by Chastity Rule(烈女門) directed by Shin Sangok in 1962, lower class man named Sungchil who falls love with young widow was described as a rebellious man believing in the modern values. In another movies which were produced in 1980s, lower-class men’s desire designed the narrative as the fantasy that they can revenge themselves on upper-class men(兩班) by being a sex partner of upper-class virtuous women.