여성 혁명가의 귀환, 그 이후 -해방기 여성혁명가의 형상과 가족 서사

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the figuration of woman revolutionaries appeared in the texts in the liberation period. When Korea was liberated from Japan, woman revolutionaries overseas or hidden underground returned to their fatherland. The various media in the liberation period were scrambling to deal with their return and this proves the existence of woman revolutionaries that had not been epics during the colonial period. The existence of such woman revolutionaries provides a great momentum for the aspiration for women’s liberation at that time. Before the establishment of a single government of South and North Korea, women’s liberation had been the major fight goal, together with the establishment of the nation state. On the strength of the liberation and revolutionary fever, the figuration of woman revolutionaries appeared in literature texts. Woman revolutionaries in literature texts appear within the framework of family epics. In the revolutionary epics in the liberation period when father did not exist or was denied, mother was new progressive symbol that would replace this. The figuration of sisters, who were female workers, was under way together with summon of worker principal agents during the revolutionary period. As is the case with Kim Sang-Hoon, the principal agents of revolutionary epics in the liberation period dreamed revolutionary family epics, and this was also the figuration of new utopian ‘nation state’ based on solidarity and tolerance. However, this was also not completely freed from androcentrism. The liberation period denies father, and woman revolutionaries are called but these are not directly embodied. In that place, ‘mother’ who lost her name and ‘sister’ who is a female worker appear. Furthermore, mothers are sacrificed after all and, based on this, son (brother) rises. This shows that the liberation period was still the age of youth. Also calling these sisters or mothers was also part of male dominant reconstruction projects and to compensate the male dominance impaired in the historical circumstances at that time. It is to overcome the malfunction of rational logic with emotional pathos. Meanwhile, in the texts after the establishment of Republic of Korea passing through the liberation period, revolutionary sisters and mothers are still called. The figurations of mothers and sisters appeared in the people’s epics in the 1980s are the example. This reflects patriarchal consciousness of progressive male principal agents of Republic of Korea. And just as male principal agents called mothers in the liberation period, this, still passing through the early part of political history of Republic of Korea, indicates that such masculine oppression and the crisis are still under way. Probably because of this, so-called progressive male writers unconsciously collude in calling ‘mother’ or ‘sister’ as panacea for curing the wounds of masculinity of Republic of Korea. Family epics in the liberation period are the staring point of this collusion.