1950년대 대중소설과 ‘전후(戰後) 여성’의 부표들 - 김말봉의 『푸른날개』 (1954), 『생명』 (1957)을 중심으로

Abstract

After the Korean War, Korean society built a logic of development based on the forceful discourse of reconstruction. In this process, "woman" was often signified as a symbol of by-products of war. Après-girl, who appeared through various mass media and literary works, emerged as a threat to reconstruction, meanwhile vulgarizing postwar existentialism into sexual freedom. Women who could not represent themselves appeared as imagined horror that created a crisis. In such a convention of female representation in the 1950s, Kim Mal-bong's Puleunnalgae (Blue Wings) and Saengmyeong (A Life) highlight the ideal of sublime love of young women contrasting older women's desires who threaten romantic love. Puleunnalgae and Saengmyeong build role models for postwar women by embodying ethical and critical young women who have disappeared from the representation of Après-girl. Thus, they enable us to imagine new women who directly speak about the tragedy of their lives that other writers could not utter or approach. Young women, however, could not find a means to overcome and pursue their critical attitude due to the limit of the romantic love narrative and could not but suture their anxiety to melodramatic conventions. The hysterical responses to the poor environment demonstrate reactions to the blockaded images of post-war women. What is noteworthy in the romantic love narratives is the evil woman who interferes with the union of love, middle-aged women. Their unrestrained desires function as a symbol of evil in contrast to young women. Those desires were reproduced through excessive narratives of melodrama and reflected the will to transcend the contradiction of reality. Their tragic fate provokes pathos, exposing the unsolvable contradictions of reality that cannot be sealed as a romantic love narrative. The post-war novels of Kim Mal-bong successfully achieve the effect of melodramatic excess toward transcendence while effectively utilizing popular romantic love narratives. They delivered the voice of women who could not articulate themselves and expressed the tragic realities that the reconstruction discourse of the post-war could not represent. Kim Mal-bong's post-war popular fiction diversified the signifier of post-war women, Après-girl, and they lead us to explore alternative ways to depict women on the border of the reconstructing state.