Oh Tae-Seok is an author who has worked actively with the creation and production of nearly 60 works over about 40 years as of 2006. In particular, his experimental appearances in his plays have varied while winning a good evaluation in light of the m...
Oh Tae-Seok is an author who has worked actively with the creation and production of nearly 60 works over about 40 years as of 2006. In particular, his experimental appearances in his plays have varied while winning a good evaluation in light of the modernized acceptance of traditional style. Therefore, research into him has been active, but there is hardly any research into his work from the perspective of feminism.
Accordingly, this thesis reviewed women described in the works of <Ocean Mist> and <On a Moony Night near Baekma River> among Oh Tae-Seok’s plays.
The thesis accepted female image criticism among the steps of critiquing feminism in literature, and applied Pfister’s figuration technique to the study as a detailed research methodology for plays.
Gaksi, who is the central figure of <Ocean Mist> in Chapter Ⅱ of the work is depicted as a sexual object to village men with her beauty and free spirit. Gaksi, who is passive and silent, can be seen as an another-self. That must be because of the specific environment of a fishing village where people desire for a rich catch and safety, but it must be still because of the mute oppression from the village men. After all, Gaksi threw herself into the sea just like Simcheong after being appointed as a scapegoat of the community; however, she dramatically survived from the sea and was accepted as a chaste woman. All these procedures go on regardless of her will, and she is described as a woman who is passive enough to be doomed by village men and becomes a scapegoat. However, her behavior of stabbing a sword into the back of Yongman at the sea might be resistance against the men who oppress her.
Sundan of <On a Moony Night near Baekma River> shown in Chapter Ⅲ of the work leaves for the underworld travel as she is given to the god of Geumhwa. At first, she was a novice female shaman who won no recognition from the villagers, but she is gradually reborn and eventually becomes an influential female shaman in the village. Sundan is a woman who searches for her identity like princess Bari, and who tries to be fully faithful to her role independently as a female shaman by praying for the seamen and welfare of the community out of a shamanist cult in a matricentric society. Also, an old woman who had been a female shaman of the village until Sundan found out her identity was an independent being who prayed for the seamen and welfare of the village, and Sundan came to succeed this role.
In contrast with the woman who didn''t seem to be independent and became a scapegoat in <Ocean Mist>, the woman in <On a Moony Night near Baekma River> is shown as a more positive and independent person.
*명부여행-underworld travel