1930~40년대 포스트 S문화와 여성 동성(애) 문학의 가능성: 지하련의 「가을」 3부작과 그 곁텍스트(para-text)를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper aims to examine how women in S-relationships are portrayed after graduating from girls’ schools, focusing on Ji Ha-Ryun’s “Autumn(「가을」)” trilogy and its para-texts. The dichotomy of heterosexuality/homosexuality does not adequately capture the unique experiences of S-culture in East Asia and their representations. Therefore, instead of emphasizing the oppressive aspects of the compulsory heterosexuality system in cases women have ceased same-sex relationships, this paper will focus on the impact of those experiences on their later lives and how they are represented. In Chapter 2, Ji Ha-Ryun’s debut work “Separation(「결별」)” is compared and analyzed alongside Choi Cheong-Hee’s “Inmaaek”(「인맥」)” and “Dawn(「여명」).” The experiences of girls’ school days and same-sex relationships are not remembered as they are, but in Choi Cheong-Hee’s work, they are invoked through a method of negation and, in Ji Ha-Ryun’s work, they are expressed through emotions of regret and loneliness. The women’s pasts do not appear as recollections but are revealed through fragmented conversations. As a result, the emotions the characters feel towards each other are often not interpretable within the internal logic of the works alone. By making it difficult to understand the works without comprehending the emotions surrounding past promises between the two women, their school days are interwoven into the present narrative. Chapter 3 analyzes Ji Ha-Ryun’s “Autumn” and “Mountain Path(「산길」),” paying attention to the subtle emotions of girls’ school alumni who reunite after marriage. “Autumn” visualizes the unacknowledged relationship between married women through the perspective of a male character. In this process, the loneliness of the two women is shared with the male character and further generalized into a sense of skepticism felt by individuals who realize the hypocrisy of social norms. “Mountain Path” depicts the maintenance of a household even after the ideal script of married life collapses, exposing that the norms of heterosexuality are sustained only by false consciousness.