廉想涉의 『牧丹꽃 필 때』 硏究 －民族的 正體性의 재현으로서의 여성과 家父長的 世界觀－

Abstract

Among Yeom Sang-Sup’s works, Mŏkdankkŏt Pil ttae (when the peony blooms) has been relatively disregarded by scholars due to its classification as a popular novel. This paper argues, however, that this novel should not be read as a ‘popular novel’ in the regular sense of the term. This paper focuses on a political gender complexion of a colony which reveals to be more complicated than the general view of the times. Yeom Sang-Sup presents political dynamics among Choson, Japan, and the West through describing the way the women characters dress. What is interesting here is that Yeom Sang-Sup figures Munja as symbol of Amer- icanism, and Sinsung, as that of East-centricism, in which Japan becomes the center of East Asia. However, it should be noticed that when Sinsung is being described positively, she is wearing traditional Choson clothes, hanbok because he reveals his awareness of Choson’s colonial reality con- trolled by the discourse of East-centricism and Choson’s characteristics as a positive thing. In the novel, Yeom Sang-Sup unfolds his narrative in the structure of ‘modern girl versus good wife,’ or respectively, Munja versus Sinsung. In this binary-opposite structure, Yeom Sang-Sup presents the former nega- tively with criticizing eyes, whereas he renders the latter in a positive light. However, in the novel, he shows that Sinsung also lacks the noble mind to understand art and has lots of raw emotion. In the charac- terization of two women’s characters, one can read the writer’s misogynist view towards all educated women and patriarchal world-view. Love tri- angles among characters and a male agent in the noble present that woman marries within the framework of the patriarchal world-view. It is very problematic that women characters are evaluated and exchanged by male characters and the existence value of women characters are proven through the evaluation and exchange.