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English(English) Article

Dignity in the Face of History | LIST

About the Article

Article
http://list.or.kr/node/914
Journal
list_Books from Korea
Issued Date
-
Page
-
Language
English(English)
Country
SOUTH KOREA
City
Seoul
Book
-
Writer
Park Wansuh , Yi Chong-Jun , Shin Kyung-sook

About the Author

  • Park Wansuh
  • Birth : 1931 ~ 2011
  • Occupation : Novelist
  • First Name : Wansuh
  • Family Name : Park
  • Korean Name : 박완서
  • ISNI : 0000000120207103
  • Works : 100
Descriptions - 1 Languages
  • English(English)

Dignity in the Face of History   By Jung Hongsoo on Nov 05 2014 04:35:19 Vol.22 Winter 2013 Korean mothers demonstrate strength despite harsh treatment throughout Korea's modern history. In contemporary Korean fiction, the place of the father is seriously at risk. In a work by Hwang Jung-eun, a father suddenly turns into a hat while lying in one corner of the room; in one of Son Honggyu’s tales, the father becomes the subject of a game called "invisible man" that the rest of the family invents on a whim, a role that he gradually resigns himself to. It has already been quite a while since not only the father who devotes himself to nation seeking or discovering an ideal new world, but also the emblematic father who boldly occupies a position as domineering patriarch, have become hard to find in Korean fiction. At present I am inclined to think that the so-called embodiment of fatherhood in life and in literature has become a matter for archeological excavation. Even though we might say that the trend in the Korean fiction of previous decades—obliged as it was to focus on such weighty social and historical topics as the division of Korea, ideological conflicts, or democracy—inclined to highlight the role of the father, in actuality tales about the absent father (very often those wonderful fathers were guerilla fighters or in prison or roaming the world or had died early) were at the same time tales of the mother who stayed home and ran the family. Much as earlier modern Korean fiction faithfully told tales of ideology and history through the father, equally it did not forget the tale of the mother who, in the father’s shadow, confronted suffering with a maternal heart and the devotion of Mother Courage. However, Korean fiction did not rush to construct a myth of long-suffering, self-sacrificing motherhood out of such stories about mothers. 

Translated Books284 See More

  • Chinese(汉语) Book Available
    那个男孩的家
    Park Wansuh et al / 박완서 / 2007
  • Indonesian(Bahasa Indonesia) Book Available
    Please Look After Mom
    Kyung-Sook Shin / 신경숙 / 2011
  • Chinese(汉语) Book Available
    裸木
    Park Wansuh et al / 박완서 / 2007

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