Fiction, the object hardly explained in reality, has the premise that it be expressed by all means. This method of explanation shows that the progress from myth and tale to fiction is related to the social and cultural development. With fiction said t...
Fiction, the object hardly explained in reality, has the premise that it be expressed by all means. This method of explanation shows that the progress from myth and tale to fiction is related to the social and cultural development. With fiction said to be a modern genre, the absolute idea is pursued in it but cannot be found in it, and it includes the dissociation from reality is significant parameters for fiction. Image, that cannot be visible, that cannot be perceptible, that can be recognized while not existing, and that is the medium known as boundary between entity and nonexistence, works on as a signal for appreciation of fiction. That is, the image is for the grasp and description of the object that cannot be demonstrated and comprehended. The image, acting on as a medium for defining vagueness, reveals its meaning through recapitulation. The interrelationship between figures performing perceptibly enhances the meaning of the image.
「The woman in the Stationery」, Oh Jeong Hee's first work, presents the image of death in the beginning. The darkness indicated as death introduces the atmosphere of the novel and implies the characters' mentality. Through the process of perceiving death, however, 'I' removes the red tumbling dolls and accepts the death included in life.
「The Garden of Childhood」expresses Bu-ne's death as 'fallen sunlight' and 'vanishing sunlight'. The expressions, 'fallen' and 'vanishing' mean the termination of life. Bu-ne's death is associated with 'the pure white scent of the internal flesh of a pine tree', 'a breath of wind', or 'the first white frost'. White symbolizes Bu-ne's sacrifice under the repression of the patriarchal society. Bu-ne's life and death stir 'I' up a strange sorrow and cause 'I' to tear. That is because of the sympathy about the conviction or punishment of women with desire and dream and the feeling exerted by empathizing with the similar fate as the same gender. Through Bu-ne's life, 'Yellow eye' realizes the tragic result of women's expression of desire and weeps thinking her small, wrinkled crotch. This feeling comes from the compassion and the negative prospect for her live in the future as women.
「The Chinese Street」 approaches the growth as the dual experience derived from life and death, and vagueness of boundary between reality and invisibility, intimating death from terminating pests in bodies with Corsican weed that is connected to the death of a cow, sister Maggie, a cat, a nun, and mother. The connection between the vagueness of boundary and the growth reveals the duality of the physical experience in growth. In this novel, the child grows by two scenes; the first is when he found that the number of steps to the statue of a general, where the article from his dead grandmother has been hidden with his mother not knowing, is decreased, and the second is the experience of the first menstruation.
「A Bird」 expresses the friendly voice for mother and death. the reason mother is described as death is that the reality, life, is under the violent patriarchal system. This novel is significant in that it describes that how badly Woo-mi's anti-growth, resulting in death, indicates obviously that a woman's growth under the patriarchal society is distorted, and that the denial of the conventional mother has actually connection with the adoration of the affectionate mother.
The purpose of this study is to explain how the death in Oh Jung Hee's novels is expressed through images and how the characters in feminine growth novels achieve the internal growth via death.
In Oh Jeong Hee's novels, the images of the death present an opportunity to recognize a new method of descriptive composition, such as discovery and investigation. In the logic of existence, the image of death is indication and is found incidentally. On discovering, however, the intimation of the image can be hardly perceived, for its existence is vague. It is significant that the process of this investigation be carried out not for selecting or excluding particular value, but for recovering the meaning of the entity and for advancing toward restoration of the order of existence. This structure of the inquiry presents an opportunity to seek the meaning of Oh Jeong Hee's feminine growth novels in that the investigation is closely related to that of the study in myth.