박완서 장편소설 『서있는 여자』의 페미니즘 정치학적 의미 : 결혼이라는 ‘계약’을 통해 본 시민성의 젠더 구조

Abstract

A series of feminism movements on the continuation of the candlelight revolution that began in the fall of 2016 seems to be promoting Korean society followed by the so‐called '1987 regime'. However, as the feminism movement was assessed (assessed in dismay on one hand) as part of 'identity politics', it seems that the implications are not being pondered sufficiently by serious comments and requests for the next democracy. What the recent feminism movement is crying out is a full dimensional transformation of the entire Korean society, from law, institution, and culture, and in that it is the voices of female rights that have been excluded or discriminated in the judicial, legislative and administrative spheres, it ultimately is a fundamental critique of the power structure that the 1987 regime has shaped and encouraged. The movement states that it is necessary to change the 'citizen society' and 'citizen' category that are the basis of the order. Park Wan-seo's "A Standing Woman", which is searching for the possibility of self‐reliance of a female as a "citizen" and a "member" of Korean society in the 1980s by coping with the problem of female related to marriage, has gained popularity since its publication in 1985, and behind it was the vigor of female movement, a subcategory of a large‐scale transformation movement triggered by The Gwangju Democratic Uprising of the 1980s. The reality of the 1980s female life, which had not been converged into the 1987 regime, and the political imagination that extended from it, are latent in this novel, and this provides a guideline useful for looking at the flaws of the 1987 regime and the prospects of the next democracy. This novel, duplicated in the narrative of mother and daughter, shows precisely two ways in which the experiment of female subjectivity fails. First, when a middle‐aged female 'Gyeong-suk' with a professor husband calls the void of life and insists on an equal exchange of love between husband and wife, her husband unilaterally declares the breakdown of marriage. This setting, in which Gyeong-suk's sudden love request, who has been devoted to the sexual division of labor as a mother and wife, stops the extension of the marriage contract, implies the peculiarity of a marriage contract in which a female cannot be recognized as a subject of a contract equal to a male. Unlike normal contracts, in marriage contracts in which a female is essentially included, the female is not recognized as a modern citizen with the right of conciliation and settlement of free contracts. In this novel, it is in itself a monopoly act that a female tells her opinion about a divorce, and she can only qualify as a member of the community in limited roles while playing a role that is forced upon her. Second, 'Yeon-ji', the daughter of Gyeong-suk, wants to realize her 'gender equality' in a marriage contract that she has aimed for her life. So, while her husband, 'Cheol-min', is in charge of housework, she promises to be responsible for the finances of the family as a reporter, and performs as is. However, in the face of social gaze and pressure, the subversion of this normative gender role continues to lead to discords and conflicts between the couple, and even Yeon-ji experiences pregnancy and abortion and feels limits of the performance of masculine roles. The pursuit of gender equality, which erased the distinction between male and female, ultimately leads them to misfortune, and Yeon-ji, who has never given up his subjectivity as a citizen, has become isolated from the network of her family and society. This proves that there is no 'gender difference' in the abstraction of 'citizen', the contemporary subject of modern contract, and that the concrete life of 'female' is not engraved. According to this novel, the female, like Yeon-ji, tries to fit herself into the ‘male’ to keep the citizen's rights, or, as in Gyeong-suk, she cannot but be left as a member of the society as she identifies herself with a face of the 'male forced female'. In short, between citizenship and membership, this novel asks what exit to search for to enable female self‐reliance. Choosing one of the two options may not be the right answer. This novel attempts to make the impossible representation of a 'female-citizen' in order to make way for female to live as a citizen and a member.