Abstract:

This dissertation examines the complex junctions between nationalism, the discourse of "civilization and enlightenment," and colonialism during the turbulent time that Korea went from being a semi-colonized state to being completely colonized primarily through the images of women created by Yi Injik, the pioneer of the first modern genre of prose, New Fiction. I argue that, in place of the class-divided premodern community, Yi Injik envisioned a new society in which various problems were entangled with one another, such as the relations between imperialism and nationalism, men and women, civilization and barbarism, and that in this process emerged a nascent form of modern womanhood whose dilemma continues to haunt in later periods. For Yi Injik, the question of the modern transformation of womanhood lies at the core of imaging a new community. Some of his female figures are to secure the purity of civilization as well as that of blood while others are, as the emblem of the uncivilized condition, to call for reconstructing the existing social order. These female characters are nowhere near modern individual women but still are subtly but crucially different from women of the previous era. As before, their identities are firmly rooted at home and largely defined by their roles in family. However, they are still different from their predecessors as the home is no longer the symbol of a hereditary class but a part of the emerging nation wherein each home is allegedly conceived as an equal unit. They are now defined by their relationship to the emerging nation, whether they are the agents of the new home, the symbol of timeless womanly virtue, or the condemnable epithets of uncivilized premodern customs. The differences among Yi Injik's female characters are, thus I argue, deep-seated in the social contradictions of the time and consequently remain irreconcilable.