‘모성’의 탄생 －최정희의 「지맥」, 「인맥」, 「천맥」을 중심으로－

Abstract

This study aims at reveal the complex and contradictory characters of ‘motherhood’ in Choi Cheong-hee’s novels, “Jimaek”(「지맥」), “Inmaaek”(「인맥」), “Chunmaek”(「천맥」). Seemingly, the common conflicts in these works are originated from the contradiction between feminine desire and motherhood’s demand, and the resolution of that conflicts are made by heroine’s recognition of the later. But in these three novels, heroine’s ethics of motherhood are attained and constructed on by holding down her own desires. In that sense, motherhood of Choi Cheong-hee’s novels is not signified only by antagonistic relationship with feminine desire, but is imparted a new meaning by certain collusion with feminity. The Heros of this trilogy come on the scene as the double of heroines. They are the objects of romantic love who wake heroines’ feminine desires, and simultaneously they are the agent of patriarchal system who lay her under necessity of mother roll. In Choi Cheong-hee’s ‘Maek(맥)’ Trilogy, the ethics of motherhood and feminine desire are never break off, and rather feminine desire which taboo in the patriarchal system construct a part of mother’s identity by strategy of melancholic interiorization. That is, the feminine desire is preserved only by the form of denial, and Motherhood is constructed and operated only by stain of feminity. Feminity is integrated into motherhood, and motherhood is constructed by feminity. Therefore in Choi Cheong-hee’s ‘Maek(맥)’ Trilogy, both feminity and motherhood could be thought as the complex of contradictions which conspire with the patriarchal system and disturb that system at the same time. In Choi Cheong-hee’s novels, the way of woman and the way of mother, is not different.