킹스턴의 『여인 무사』 : 중국계 미국 여성주체의 텍스트적 재구성

구은숙 한국현대영미소설학회 1995 현대영미소설 Vol.2 No.-

In her autobiographical novel The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston presents her search for identity. She is an American born Chinese woman who struggles with the contradictions that arise from two distinct cultures. Kingston contextualizes her quest for identity through the mother-daughter relationship. She defines herself by and against her mother who is the signifier of Chinese culture. However, Chinese culture which is fraught with misogyny, becomes a psychological burden to Kingston. Thus she has to separate herself from her mother and the Chinese culture. Paradoxically, her search for identity is incomplete as long as she denies her cultural heritage. She constructs her identity both by individuating herself from her mother and claiming her Chinese ancestry. The process of creating her identity parallels Kingston's struggle to break silence and find her own authentic voice. Kingston is doubly silenced by her own culture as well as by the dominant culture. She suffers from silence when she has to speak in English at school. Thus Kingston describes how the cultural displacement of Chinese American women is reproduced in the level of language. Her silence is further complicated by her parents' injunction not to tell Americans about immigration secrets. Finally she overcomes her silence and finds her own voice with which she reinterprets and revises her mother's stories. She uses her doubly marginalized position to challenge not only the dominant culture but also the misogynistic Chinese culture. In other words she transforms her precarious and paradoxical double positions into an advantageous one. Through her storytelling, she unravels the old myths and legends in order to reclaim a positive cultural heritages and to rejcet the negative. In rewriting a Chinese legend which is oppressive to women, Kingston creates a viable myth and reinvents a female Chinese American identity.

글로벌 서사와 한국전쟁의 문학적 재현

구은숙 미래영어영문학회 2015 미래영어영문학회 학술대회 자료집 Vol.2015 No.12

History, Trauma, and Motherhood in a Korean Adoptee Narrative: Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s Somebody’s Daughter

구은숙 한국영어영문학회 2009 영어 영문학 Vol.55 No.6

Korean adoptee narratives have proliferated over the last ten years as adopted Koreans have begun to represent their own experiences of violent dislocation, displacement and loss in various forms of literary and artistic works, including poems, autobiographical works, novels, documentaries and films. These narratives by Korean adoptees have intervened in the current diaspora discourse to question further the traditional categories of race, ethnicity, culture and nation by representing the unique experiences of the forced and involuntary migration of adopted Koreans. For a long time, the adoption discourse has been mostly constructed from the perspectives of adoptive parents. Therefore the voice of adoptees as well as that of the birth mothers have not been properly heard or represented in adoption discourse. According to Hosu Kim, the U. S. adoption discourse, feeling pressured to deal with the stigma of the commodification of children, changed from viewing the adoptees as children who had been rescued from poverty and abandonment to considering them as a gift from the birth mothers. With the emergence of the gift rhetoric in transnational adoption, the birth mothers erased from adoption discourse have begun to be acknowledged as one of the central characters in the adoption triad. If Korean adoptees are the “the ghostly children of Korean history,” the birth mothers are their “ghostly doubles” who “bear the mark of a repressed national trauma.” Somebody’s Daughter represents the female experiences of becoming an adopted child and of being a birth mother. In particular, the novel makes a birth mother, the forgotten presence in adoptee narratives, into a central figure in the triangular relationship created by international adoption. The novel historicizes the experiences of a Korean adoptee growing up in America as well as those of a mother who had suffered silently from feelings of unbearable loss, guilt, grief and from unforgettable memories. In addition, narrating the birth mother’s story is a way to give humanity back to these forgotten women in Korean adoption history. Revisiting the site of loss both for a mother and a daughter through the novel is an act of collective mourning. The narratives about and by Korean adoptees force Korean intellectuals to reflect seriously upon Korean society and its underlying ideology which prevents a woman from mothering her own baby, and to take an ethical and political stand on this current social and political issue. Korean adoptee narratives have proliferated over the last ten years as adopted Koreans have begun to represent their own experiences of violent dislocation, displacement and loss in various forms of literary and artistic works, including poems, autobiographical works, novels, documentaries and films. These narratives by Korean adoptees have intervened in the current diaspora discourse to question further the traditional categories of race, ethnicity, culture and nation by representing the unique experiences of the forced and involuntary migration of adopted Koreans. For a long time, the adoption discourse has been mostly constructed from the perspectives of adoptive parents. Therefore the voice of adoptees as well as that of the birth mothers have not been properly heard or represented in adoption discourse. According to Hosu Kim, the U. S. adoption discourse, feeling pressured to deal with the stigma of the commodification of children, changed from viewing the adoptees as children who had been rescued from poverty and abandonment to considering them as a gift from the birth mothers. With the emergence of the gift rhetoric in transnational adoption, the birth mothers erased from adoption discourse have begun to be acknowledged as one of the central characters in the adoption triad. If Korean adoptees are the “the ghostly children of Korean history,” the birth mothers are their “ghostly doubles” who “bear the mark of a repressed national trauma.” Somebody’s Daughter represents the female experiences of becoming an adopted child and of being a birth mother. In particular, the novel makes a birth mother, the forgotten presence in adoptee narratives, into a central figure in the triangular relationship created by international adoption. The novel historicizes the experiences of a Korean adoptee growing up in America as well as those of a mother who had suffered silently from feelings of unbearable loss, guilt, grief and from unforgettable memories. In addition, narrating the birth mother’s story is a way to give humanity back to these forgotten women in Korean adoption history. Revisiting the site of loss both for a mother and a daughter through the novel is an act of collective mourning. The narratives about and by Korean adoptees force Korean intellectuals to reflect seriously upon Korean society and its underlying ideology which prevents a woman from mothering her own baby, and to take an ethical and political stand on this current social and political issue.

타자의 윤리학과 치유: 폴 윤(Paul Yoon)의 『원스 더 쇼어』(Once the Shore)

구은숙 청주대학교 인문과학연구소 2019 人文科學論集 Vol.58 No.-

Paul Yoon’s first short story collection Once the Shore depicts the history of Japanese colonialism, the Korean War, and the American military occupation of the Korean peninsula. In the stories, the author portrays the characters whose lives are affected by the loss of their loved ones during the history of oppression. As Emmanuel Levinas argues, the subject is constituted by the presence of the other, and to recognize the other is to offer kindness and hospitality and to feel responsibility towards the other. Paul Yoon presents characters who are able to empathize with the other in spite of their suffering and isolation by reconstructing their fragmented memories. They are freed from spiritual isolation by connecting to the others who show their kindness and hospitality. In “Once the Shore,” an American widow comes to Solla Island that her husband had visited during the Pacific war. The husband told her that he inscribed his initials and hers on the wall of the cave. The American widow’s wish to go to the cave is fulfilled by the help of a young Korean waiter, Jim, who works at the resort. Jim also suffers from the loss of his brother whose fishing boat collided with an the American submarine. The American widow and Jim, unable to deal with their own sufferings, refuse to confront the reality. However, when Jim listens to American widow’s story, she is able to open her heart and to articulate her feelings of mourning, anger and sadness resulting from the death of her husband. Jim also decides to attend the funeral of his brother in order to tell his brother’s story to the people. In “So That They Do Not Hear Us,” Ahrim, a woman diver on the island, befriends a Japanese boy, Sinaru, who emigrated from Japan with his parents. Ahrim whose husband was conscripted by the Japanese military during the Japanese colonial occupation lives a lonely life without much communication with her neighbors. She extends her motherly care to the Japanese boy who had lost his arm from a shark attack. Both of them who suffer from loss are able to connect and communicate with the other by transcending national, cultural and linguistic boundaries.

유령 화자의 흑인 역사 다시쓰기 : 토니 모리슨의 『러브』(Love)

구은숙 청주대학교 인문과학연구소 2015 人文科學論集 Vol.50 No.-

Toni Morrison's eighth novel Love explores the distortion of love and the loss of female relationship interrupted by the black patriarchal power. In the 1930s, still reeling under the aftermath of Depression, Bill Cosey becomes a successful entrepreneur catering to the desire of black bourgeoisie by providing a space for material comfort and music in building Cosey Hotel and Resort. He thus becomes a ideal model for black community. However, his business begins to fail after the Civil Rights Movement and ensuing racial integration phenomenon. Morrison explores what has been lost in black community with the Civil Right Movement although there was undeniable gains with the change of racial politics. Cosey also has a shameful past of his father being a court informer and of accumulating wealth by selling information to the white policemen. In addition, Bill Cosey's marriage in his fifties to eleven year old girl who is his granddaughter's best friend destroys two girls' friendship. Separated by the heterosexual desire of a black male, two women suffer from the loss of their childhood as well as of their subjectivity. Only with the death of a friend, Christine comes to the understanding of what was stolen from them and how they willingly gave themselves up and subjugated to the male power. Morrison investigates the conflicts within black community and the hypocrisy of black male power, and in doing so she rewrites African American history.

흑인 페미니스트 비평 : 이론과 현실의 경계를 뛰어 넘는 실천의 정치학 Transcending the Binary between Theory and Practice

구은숙 청주대학교 인문과학연구소 1999 人文科學論集 Vol.19 No.-

『제스처 인생』에 재현된 정체성, 역사, 젠더

구은숙 淸州大學校 國際文化硏究院 2008 國際文化硏究 Vol.26 No.-

침묵의 트랜스내셔널 이주, 모성 상실과 여성 정체성: : 엘리자베스 김 (Elizabeth Kim)의 『만가지 슬픔』(Ten ThousandSorrows)

구은숙 청주대학교 인문과학연구소 2013 人文科學論集 Vol.46 No.-

As Kim Su Rasmussen argues, "international adoption is a constitutive blind spot in modern Korean society and the history of Korean adoption is the past nobody wants to remember." Transnational adoption of Korean children began as the international project of humanitarian support for and rescue of Korean War orphans after the Korean War. However, it was made possible by the Koreanmodernization project which supported the exportation of illegitimate children of mixed blood who could not be embraced by the patriarchal family structures. Korean transnational adoptees are positioned in white society differently from the Korean immigrants as they have to live with white families, identifying themselves as whites while they are seen as the others by the whites. In spite of the fact that they are culturally and linguistically white, they are still recognized as the racial others in white society. Elizabeth Kim's memoir Ten Thousand Sorrows portrays the painful experiences of witnessing her mother's death by her own family's "honor killing" and of later being adopted by a white couple who are religious fundamentalists. Kim's mother was killed by her father and brother since she gave birth to a mixed blood child out of wedlock and refused to give her up. As an orphan, Kim is involuntarily migrated to America. Kim has to confront both racism and religious oppression at home. Her parents are so judgmental and physically abusive that she constantly feels she is worthless and becomes suicidal. Her husband also abuses her sexually and physically, and she decides to leave her marriage. The only hope for Kim is her own daughter. Kim is able to remember her mother by becoming a loving and devoted mother to her daughter. She also writes and talks to her dead mother, and in doing so she mourns the loss of her mother and overcomes the trauma of separation from her mother and culture. Working as a journalist and writing about the lives of other people with desperate needs, she develops compassion for others, and finally finds herself as she reconstructs her fragmented self in writing The Korean adoptee's memoir indicts not only America's racism and religious oppression but also the patriarchy and sexual oppression of Korean society. In writing about her own life, Kim reconstructs her subjectivity and rewrites her history of adoption in which life history of a Korean birth mother is unrepresented.

입양, 가족, 정체성 찾기: 영화 속에 재현된 해외 입양인의 삶

구은숙 청주대학교 인문과학연구소 2021 人文科學論集 Vol.62 No.-

Transantional Korean adoptees have been coming back to Korea to search for their birth mothers as well as what they had lost in the process of transnational adoption. These adoptees have begun to represent their experiences of being abandoned and being transferred to the totally strange environment in addition to their loss of family, language and nationality. By writing and expressing their complicated feelings of loss and sadness through art, Korean adoptees are able to find their psychological roots and to heal their trauma. Couleur de pear=Miel, Susan Brink’s Arirang and First Person Plural are the films that represent the lives of three Korean transnational adoptees, and adoptees’ effort to put together their fragmented memories and rewrite the history of Korean adoptees. These films are the products of adoptees’ desire to reconstruct both their identity and personal histories and to record their journey of homecoming. They also ask the Korean society to reflect the dark side of Korean history in which Korean children had been expelled from the home country even in the midst of Korean economic development. In the process of expressing their conflicting feelings toward Korea, Korean adoptees are abel to come to terms with their past and realize how much they are loved by both their birth mothers and adopted mothers. Jun Jung Shik’s animation film and Deanne Borsay Liem’s documentary film are the visual record of their search for identity as well as recuperating what has been erased in Korean national history. Susan Brink’s Arirang rewrites the history of Korean adoptees by exposing the physical and emotional abuse that a Korean adoptee had to endure in order to survive in the unfamiliar culture. These films force the Korean audience to rethink the problems of Korean society and why the Korean children continue to be sent out of the country.

조라 닐허스턴의 『그들의 눈은 신비를 보았다』: 흑인 여성 정체성 추구와 공동체

구은숙 한국중앙영어영문학회 2002 영어영문학연구 Vol.44 No.1