어머니를 가르친 딸－「혈의 누」라는 어학교－

Abstract

The fact that Okryon is helped by several men and women evokes the qualification and character of civilized people related to sympathy or employment. Therefore, Ko Jangpal’s rescue of Okryon’s mother differs from the help of hotel “boy” originating from his modern job. Instead, it suggests the disorganized situation of Korea through Ko’s condition in which he had lost his previous position without forming new social relationships. In this sense, Ko without a job belongs to the same class as Okryon’s mother who lost her position by the scattering of her family. Furthermore, Ko’s help is not different from the farmer`s brutal behavior toward her, implying a type of subversion of the pre-modern hierarchy. Thus, the house she keeps over alone is not an empty space but a social and historical site in which a complicated dynamism arises between the past and the future. It would not be recovered with her husband`s return but should be sublated by the new house of Okryon and Ku wanseo. Meanwhile, the one core of this novel is the study of foreign languages and translation. Through these factors, the novel endeavors to establish the Korean vernacular which is not only confronted with foreign languages but also internally unified as one entity, signifying the overcoming of the partition of status and gender existing in Korean society and the negation of the pre-modern relationship with China. In short, this novel aims to realize a phono-centrical modern nation. However, the important thing is the fact that “the voice of homeland” is enunciated by the mediation of letters and texts. Another aspect to point out is that the wound and the separation of Okryon are metaphors which narratively visualize the operation of écriture which precedes ‘presence’ and already permeates the oral language. The écriture of Korean language as a system of difference and distinctiveness anticipates the possibility of reorganizing Korean society in the future as well. Therefore, the characters are studying foreign languages and Korean language simultaneously. This language class is finally accomplished by the lecture of the daughter, who teaches the international position of Korean language to her mother by the letter which arrives at her mother’s place across the Pacific Ocean. Through this home education which links women’s quarters to the world, Tears of Blood tries to produce the presence of Nation with its voice originated from Korean écriture.