발화하는 여성들과 국민 되기의 서사 - 지하련의 「도정」과 손소희의 「도피」를 중심으로 -

Abstract

Female literature during the liberation period in Korea has not been thoroughly studied. Existing studies of female literature were conducted based on ‘female writing’. Female authors of the liberation period, however, focused on the narrative of being a nation and tried to find a way to be an elite author, which had not been permitted previously. To acquire the status of elite author, female writers would speak through male narrators. This article considers studies of female literature focusing on female writing restricted by a fixed gender identity. The goal of this study is to reveal the meaning of female narratives about being a nation, spoken through the voice of elite authors but omitting the female identity. Son So-hee’s Evasion and Ji Ha-ryun’s The Path are representative novels that show the main features of female literature during the liberation period. Narration of these novels is based on acquiring a national identity through male main characters. By writing this way, the authors were able to speak about political issues. At the same time, however, they exposed their actual gender that was not fully allowed to speak those issues. This is represented as belated nations, in which main characters desperately seek to join the nation building process but cannot be an immediate member because they are not free from a sense of guilty from the colonial past. They are anxious to join the historical progress but arrive too late for the moment of liberation. The anxiety of the belated nations is a result of female authors’ narration. Female authors were in a conflicting position: they wanted to speak as elite authors but were not able to speak fully as women. Therefore, their novels contain points that cannot be interpreted, in spite of their strong voices as national elites. This ambivalence is a key characteristic of what it meant to speak as women.