트러블을 일으키는 여성들 -김인숙의 『칼날과 사랑』을 중심으로

Abstract

In the 1990s, women’s issues began to emerge as a central theme in literature produced by women. On one hand, the foray into the new field was seen as important, whereas on the other hand, the methodology adopted often became a topic of contention. Critics who have written on Kim Insuk's Blade and Love(1993) talked about how the author portrayed women’s issues by exploring the psychology of female characters. The novel was criticized for depicting women’s issues as a conflict between the (‘two’) sexes and for otherizing men. Although such themes were commonly found in the writings of the women writers at the time, Kim Insuk’s works became an object of scrutiny because her earlier works had been regarded as part of realism literature. In other words, Kim, who had thus far occupied a distinct position in the genealogy of female writers, had changed her literary character and begun to inhibit a writing style similar to other female writers. This change cast a new light on the debate surrounding the representation of women’s issues and Kim’s position within that discourse. Conflict, or ‘trouble’ is often externalized because it interferes with society’s stability. But this very externalization points to the fact that trouble is an internal condition that cannot be entirely externalized. Women’s literature from the early 1990s caused a furor, or ‘trouble’ because the problems they depicted could not be neatly categorized as only ‘women’s issues.’ This paper is concerned with examining the concept of ‘trouble’ present in Kim’s novel Blade and Love. While the existing discourse has been focused on how Kim, despite being part of the ‘386-generation’ portrayed reality differently, I seek to focus on the context in which such representation took place and was perceived as ‘trouble,’ and the implications of such a perception. The works of fiction analyzed in this paper are not only stories which focus on women’s problems, but stories where women are depicted as becoming a ‘problem’ themselves. The novel is meaningful in the way that, despite being posited as an instrument of ‘trouble,’ it is devoted to creating a literary practice that stirs up ‘trouble’ to fracture such a positioning itself.