For Koreans who went through the Second World War as well as, more specifically, the Korean War in 1950, war is a familiar subject in the literature. War has been described variously and repeatedly across a variety of topics, throughout all genres in literature. Nonetheless, literature about war is not a familiar subject to women writers who have paid more attention to interpersonal aspects or systematic issues in society more than war, such as the issue of discrimination against women.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze women portrayed in war-related plays written by female playwriters who are considered the first generation of female playwriters in South Korea. The implication of this paper is to extend the views about women by looking at how women survived wars that were violent toward and victimized them, and how power relationships with men were produced in war.
1. Family Breakup & Reinforced Maternal Ideology
Women are often evaluated to be inferior to and dependent upon men, influenced by male-dominant values in society. However, women emerge to be a mythic entity that reproduce and feed life with magical power when an inferior and dependent woman is suggested as a mother. In plays, it is maternity that harmonizes and cures a family broken by war.
<Dong-geo-in(A Roommate)>, written by Ja-rim Kim, casts Mrs. Min and Ji Hyang-a as women who save a man because of maternity.
2. Maturity in Sensing Society & Companions of Men
Although women have been mere helpers or volunteers in the rear to help men in various ways, a few actively served as companions or protectors of men. <Heen-kot-ma-ul(The White Flower Village)> and <Ren>, written by Seung-hee Kang, cast this kind of women. In <Heen-kot-ma-ul>, first, Gyung-sook Min and sisters Sun-young No and Mrs. No are those who actively participate in men’s works with strong senses of nation and reality and even are able to protect men.
3. Longing for Love & Tragic Romanticists
Love in war is desperate but easily changeable depending on external conditions. Therefore, in the literature describing love in war, women are often portrayed as the one who pursues love and is a scapegoat often betrayed by men or external conditions. Women of this kind include those who appeared in <Ren> and <Peo-heo(The Ruins)>, written by Seong-hee Kang, and <Sa-rang-ul Chat-a- seo(Looking for Love)>, written by Hyun-sook Park. Those who appear in these plays are very similar. They are intelligent, fall in love with men, and are romanticists who end in a tragedy because of war. These women lack a sense of society so that they cannot recognize the reality as it is and understand the trend of the period. Therefore, they end in a tragedy caused by war, which is a space saturated with complete violence.
4. Sexual Instrumentalism & Societal Taboo
Physical violence is the most common and shameful wound that wars imposed on women. In war, women are used as sexual instrument rather than existing as a human being. Such violence hurts women mentally as well as physically. And to Koreans, such wound has remained as an unhealed social issue: the issue of Jeong-sin Dae.
However, in plays, such physical violence is not described in detail. <Gu Chan-ran-han Yu-san>, as introduced previously, describes Sun-hee Park’s trial to commit suicide after being gang-raped and her husband’s healing her wound but in limited ways. In this regard, <Won-hon-ye So-ri(A Voice of Malignant Sprits)>, written by Seong-hee Kang, is critical in the importance and uniqueness of the topic as the issue of Jeong-sin Dae.