Remembering the forgotten 노라 옥자 켈러의 『종군 위안부』와 이창래의 『제스쳐 라이프』 2007

NAVER 학술정보 > 잊혀진 이들을 기억하다 : 노라 옥자 켈러의 『종군 위안부』와 이창래의 『제스쳐 라이프』



잊혀진 이들을 기억하다 : 노라 옥자 켈러의 『종군 위안부』와 이창래의 『제스쳐 라이프』

Remembering the forgotten : Nora Okja Keller's comfort woman and Chang-rae Lee's a gesture life

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Joo Hyun Park

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연세대학교 2007년

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국회도서관 한국교육학술정보원

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주제분야미분류키워드

Keller, Nora Okja, 이창래, 종군위안부, 노라옥자켈러, 역사, 망각, 기억, 다시쓰기, 식민주의, 신식민주의, 샤머니즘, 이민, 동화, comfort women, Nora Okja Keller, Chang-rae Lee, history, oblivion, remembering, retelling, memory, colonialism, neo-colonialism, shamanism, assimilation, immigration

초록
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참고문헌

초록

노라 옥자 켈러와 이창래는 그들의 소설을 통해 공적 역사를 재조명하는 데 일조하고 있다. 그들은 단 하나의 역사 서술 방식을 거부하며, 그 동안 역사책에서 다루어지지 않았던 소외된 사람들의 이야기를 재조명한다. 노라 옥자 켈러는 종군 위안부였던 주인공 아키코를 통해 위안소에서의 삶을 생생하게 묘사한다. 위안부들은 비인간적인 대우를 받았으며, 성적인 억압을 견디어내야만 했다. 아키코는 자신의 경험을 테이프에 녹음하여 역사를 구전으로 전달하는 동시에, 자신과 같은 경험을 했던 수 많은 여성들을 위무한다. 

이렇게 구술로 기록된 역사는 아키코의 딸인 베카에게로 전승된다. 그녀는 사실이란 눈으로 보는 표면의 것과는 다를 수 있다는 것을 알게 된다. 비정상적인 여자라고 생각했던 자신의 어머니는 사실 위안부로서 엄청난 고통을 받고 그것을 극복한 무당이었다. 아키코의 과거 회상을 통해 작가는 위안부들의 역사를 기억하며, 이 기억은 다음 세대로 전승되어야 하는 것임을 역설하고 있는 것이다. 

또한 켈러는 아키코를 미국 이민지로 설정함으로써 2차 세계 대전 이후 미국과 한국의 관계를 조망한다. 아키코는 위안소에서는 일본군들에게, 결혼 후에는 미국인 남편에게 억압 당한다. 아키코가 감내해야만 하는 이러한 상황은 대한민국이 일본 식민주의에 의해서, 그리고 해방 후에는 미국의 신식민주의에 의해 지배당했던 역사를 그대로 보여준다.

이창래는 위안부 역사를 기술하는 데 있어서 다른 시각을 취한다. 제스쳐 라이프의 주인공은 일본군이다. 하타는 한국인 부모에게서 태어나 자라다가 일본 가정으로 입양된 남성으로 설정되어 있다. 그는 전후에 미국으로 이민해 새로운 인생을 살아가게 되는데, 소설은 그의 현재 미국에서의 삶과 과거 일본에서의 경험을 병치시키며 진행된다. 하타는 켈러의 주인공인 아키코와는 달리 과거를 기억하는 데에 수동적이다. 하타는 자신을 드러내지 않고, 타인과의 솔직한 대화를 거부한다. 참전 군인의 과거 이야기는 그의 회상을 통해서 독자에게만 전달된다. 한국에서 일본으로, 일본에서 미국으로 이주해가는 하타는 이동할 때마다 새로운 사회가 요구하는 모습으로 변모하며 그 사회의 관습과 문화를 받아들인다. 일본에서 그는 일본 사회의 식민주의적 사고를 그대로 받아들인다. 그는 일본 사회의 일원으로 살고자 하는 염원을 지니고 있으며, 그렇기 때문에 자신의 민족성을 부정하게 된다. 미국으로 건너가서도 하타는 변하지 않는다. 그는 바람직한 시민으로 보이고자 하는 자신의 욕구 때문에 사람들에게 가까이 다가가지 못한다. 베들리 런이라는 백인 동네에서 하타는 백인 사회에 내재되어 있는 인종 차별을 그대로 받아들인다. 그가 내면화한 흑인에 대한 인종 차별은 그의 입양아 써니와 그의 관계에 영향을 끼친다. 흑인 피가 섞인 한국 여자 아이 써니에게 하타는 부성애를 느끼지 못한다. 도리어 그는 자신과는 확연하게 다른 그녀의 외모에 불편함을 느낀다. 결국 아슬아슬하게 지속되던 부녀의 관계는 써니가 흑인 남성과의 연애를 통해 아이를 갖게 되었을 때에 끝난다.

 하타는 만삭에 가까운 써니를 유산시키고, 결국 써니는 유산 후 하타를 떠나버린다. 하타 자신의 백인 여성과의 연애 또한 하타의 인종 차별적인 시각 때문에 실패하게 된다. 그는 백인 사회에서 동양인과 백인의 관계는 부적절하게 여겨진다는 사실을 잘 인식하고 있다. 그의 조심스러운 처신은 상대를 지치게 만들 뿐이다. 지속적으로 한 사회에 소속되고자 하는 하타의 모습을 통해 이창래는 이민자의 문제를 드러낸다. 그는 종군 위안부라는 소재를 통해 잊혀진 역사를 드러내는 것뿐 아니라, 현재 미국 사회의 문제를 지적한다.  

켈러와 이창래는 한국의 과거사를 미국의 현대사와 연결시켜 이해하고 있다. 그들은 소설 쓰기를 통해 잊혀졌던 위안부 역사를 드러내어 독자들로 하여금 현실과 과거를 연결 지어 생각할 수 있도록 한다. 위안부와 일본 군인의 상반된 입장에서 쓰여진 두 소설은, 상충된다기 보다는 서로 보완적 역할을 하고 있다. 한 가지 입장으로 역사를 이해한다는 것은 불가능하다. ‘하나의’ 절대적인 역사 서술을 거부한다면 이 두 소설의 우열을 가리는 것 또한 불필요하게 된다. 독자는 두 작품을 읽음으로써 위안부 역사에 대한, 한미 관계에 대한 자신의 역사 의식을 확장시킬 수 있을 것이다. 잊혀진 이야기를 재구성한다는 것, 그 과정에서 과거를 현재와 연결시켜 독자의 현실과 역사를 잇는다는 것이 두 작가의 공통적인 성과라고 생각한다.

Stories of the subaltern are usually omitted from national history. Historical facts do not speak for themselves; documents and facts that collide with national interests are elided in national history textbooks. 

Nora Okja Keller and Chang-rae Lee both re-examine the official history and oppose the one narrative represented to be the official history. Through their works Comfort Woman and A Gesture Life, the writers evoke the forgotten issue of comfort women.

By depicting a former comfort woman, Akiko, Keller vividly illustrates life in the comfort camps. The sexual violence and dehumanization of the comfort women are depicted through Akiko’s narration. The remembered history of a former comfort woman is recorded as an oral testimony and a consolation to the deceased women. The cassette tape that bears the history of comfort women is passed on to Beccah, Akiko’s daughter. By listening to the tape the second generation, Beccah, is able to comprehend history and also to take on the role of a mourner. She is enlightened with the fact that the truth may differ from what meets the eye. Her mother, whom she regarded as a mad woman, reemerges as a shaman who survived through much hardship in her life. 

In her portrayal of Akiko’s life in the United States, Keller explores the relationship between the United States and Korea. Akiko’s husband, Bradley, symbolizes the U.S. posing as a liberator of Korea, concealing its desire to dominate the peninsula. Akiko is continuously violated by Japanese soldiers, and later by her American husband. The violence Akiko has to endure throughout her life represents how the Korean peninsula was first dominated by Japanese Imperialism and later by American neo-colonialism.

Chang-rae Lee takes a different vantage point in retelling the issue of comfort women. His protagonist is a former medic of the Japanese Army. Hata is an ethnic Korean adopted into a Japanese family. He later immigrates to the United States to start a new life, and the novel juxtaposes his past with his present life in the States. Through the life of Franklin Hata, Chang-rae Lee explicates the life of an Asian immigrant. Moving from Korean to Japan to the United States, Hata has to adapt to the new locations and accept the moral values of each community. He used to adhere to the colonial ideas of the Japanese Empire while he was serving in the military. He desired to assimilate to Japanese society, which keeps him from identifying himself as Korean. His life in the United States is not much different from that in Japan. 

He fails to develop intimate relationships because of his yearning to be seen as a model citizen. Residing in Bedley Run, a white dominated town, he adjusts to the values of the white community. By portraying Hata’s continuous suffering to assimilate into his adopted/immigrated society, Chang-rae Lee depicts the problem of immigration and uncovers the forgotten history of the comfort women.

Hata is different from Keller’s protagonist, Akiko, in dealing with the traumatic experiences in World War II. He constantly denies his past, and is not willing to reflect on it. Hata’s reluctance to remember and share his pain also hinders him from having close relationships with other people. He presents himself as good Doc Hata, but does not allow anyone to enter into his emotional sphere. Lack of communication hampers his familial bonding, and he never reveals his past to his daughter. 

The history of a war participant is told only in his own reflections and memories. Thus, although the readers are able to acknowledge his past stories, the information is not passed down to the second generation.

Scholars of Asian American studies often express their concern with Asian American writers’ interest in the Asian past, explaining that it is dangerous to linger on the past and to avoid societies’ present and imminent difficulties. 

However, Keller and Lee connect Korea’s history with the present lives of Asian Americans. Their novels reveal the forgotten history of the comfort women, encouraging their readers to contemplate history in the light of the present. Despite each novel’s merits and demerits, it is impossible to evaluate their authors’ works by comparing one to the other. Comfort Woman and A Gesture Life do not oppose each other; rather, the two works supplement each other by taking different vantage points in remembering the issue of comfort women. By reading the two works, readers would be able to comprehend that there is no “ultimate truth” in history.

목차

title page
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abstract 7
Introduction 11

• I. Counter-discourse: writing between the lines of history 15
• II. The mediator of the past and the present: Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman. 27
• III. Struggling with the oppressed past: Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life. 54
• Conclusion 78

Works cited 83
국문 요약 88

==

If. The Mccliator of the Past and the Present: Nora Okja Keller's Comfort JVo,i,a,,.

In her first novel Comfort Woman, Keller encourages her readers to see the "roads not taken in one's life, possibilities cut short, potentialities left underdeveloped," guiding them to see the individual lives which the authentic history have disregarded as unimportant information which lacks evidence (Gross 140).

 Individual testimonies have been gaining more respect as credible sources on the subject of the subaltern than the official archives because patriarchal ideology and misogyny are often embedded in the already existing historical documents. A testimony reveals history acutely through its "emotional and gestural vividness," bearing more than what has been recorded in history textbooks (Gabriel M. Spiegel 157). Demanding factual accuracy is nonsensical because testimonies narrate what could not be articulated in official history.

Through her fictional narratives Keller is able to pass down the veiled history of the subaltern which was "unspoken, but nonetheless real memories, borne by living societies" (Spiegel 16). The seemingly fragmented pieces of testimony reveal not only individual experiences in history. but also "the impossibility of telling" (Felman 224). Therefore, it could he understood that the fragmented speech of Akiko in Keller's Comfort Woman challenges the official history by exposing both silence and the history of a forgotten individual. When a testifier has to recall hard times which he or she cannot bear remembering, the testimony may become fragmented and inconsistent. The difficulty of remembrance leads the testifier to start from stories which are easier to recall and the events that remain most vividly in the memories. Keller's use of nonlinear narrative structure resembles the fragmented memories of a former comfort woman, and it would be possible to discern that nonlinearity of the text is similar to the way memories are evoked in reality2.

By depicting Akiko as a survivor, Keller dismantles the distinction between silence and resistance. Keller retells the story of comfort women not as simply victims, but as survivors of war. Even silence in comfort camps can he interpreted as a form of resistance. Akiko narrates that in front of the Japanese soldiers, "[they] all tried to walk the same, tie [their] hair the same, keep the same blank looks on[their] faces. To be special there meant only that [they] would be used more, that [they] would die fastest" (Comfori Woman 143). Camouflaging one's body within a group, Akiko's means of survival begins by disposing individuality, therefore becoming less popular. For the comfort women, hiding their individuality was a strategy used to battle against the violation of their bodies- Also, when the Japanese banned the use of mother

2 H-chul Kang, who testified at Yonsei University on 20 Nov. 2006 started her testimony by recalling her childhood. Her story-telling went back and forth from present and past, and the narrative form was fragmented. She often stopped in the middle of her sentence when she could not bear to speak of her sorrows.

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tongue, comfort women started using other means of communication. Akiko narrates that the comfort women "taught [themselves] to communicate through eye movements, body posture, tilts of the head, or--when [they] could not see each other--through rhythmic rustling between [their] stalls in this way, [they] would speak, in this way [they] kept [their] sanity" (Comfort Woman 16). Thus, Keller claims that silence of comfort women does not mean surrendering to power; for underneath their silence, comfort women were communicating discreetly in a nonverbal resistance. The secret language among comfort women enabled them to keep their sanity, maintaining their self respect trampled under the Japanese soldiers' violence.

Keller blurs the distinction between a mad woman and a survivor by portraying Akiko as a strong woman. Akiko becomes a 'mudang.' a Korean shaman who is able to lighten the burden of others. Because she was once dead in the comfort station, her experience of pain and anguish enables her to connect to the dead, thus gaining divine power3. She can connect to the dead because "she has come back from the experience of death"(Sung-ran Cho 65). Auntie Rena, who takes the role of Akiko 's manager when Akiko becomes a shaman. declares Akiko a survivor stating that "[Akiko] was one survivab. Das

One might question the practicality of Akiko's becoming a shaman. However, there were several former comfort women who became shamans after their return from comfort stations. For example, Jok-kan Bae, a former Korean comfort woman testifies that she served as a medium. how she can read other people. Das how come she can see their wishes and fears. Das how she can travel out of dis world into hell, cause she already been there and back and know the way"(Comfori Woman 203). As it may sound ironic, Akiko can help the suffering and the dead, because she has suffered so much in M-e. By conducting gut, a ceremony consoling the dead, Akiko comforts the Korean immigrants. Such power of healing enables Akiko to regain self respect and a means of financial support. Life and death, pain and comfort, secrecy and confession, past and present all link to one another in the life of a shaman.

Keller redefines the meaning of comfort women as 'healing women' by illustrating Akiko as a headstrong woman who is able to overcome her traumatic past and to serve as a shaman. Akiko conducts gut, thereby healing herself and consoling her baby who was forcefully aborted, and many comfort women who died in comfort stations without name and dignity. Akiko overcomes her individual experience and moreover connects to the pain of Korean immigrants by conducting the traditional ceremony. She connects the Korean minority group to their ancestors by becoming their mediator, leading them to face and inherit their past in a new country. By becoming a professional shaman. Akiko aides and comforts the Korean American community in Flawaii, acquiring a communal self' (Kun Jong Lee 451).

There are critics who disapprove of Keller's use of shamanism in the

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novel, pointing out that the seeming madness of a shaman isolates her in America (Kang 33). Jin-hee Kim argues that Keller's portrayal of shamanism misleads the Western readers to gaze at Korean culture and religion as exotic and mysterious. However, shamanism conceivably can be understood as a means of resistance towards the earlier depiction of Asian women as obedient little dolls or tiger ladies. Shamanism enables the writer to avoid the ordinary prejudiced illustration of the "Orient," by evoking the forgotten history through the voice of a shaman. The western rationality has no value in Akiko's shamanistic world. Rather than submitting herself to the values of America, Akiko remains in a world unknown to the westerners shouting the stories of the comfort women, and dancing to her shamanistic chants. Instead of relying on the white man for liberation, Akiko liberates herself, tearing herself away from the violator in her shamanistic world. Shamanism also resists the division between what has been seen and what has not. Shamans live in the world resting between death and life, communicating with ghosts of the deceased, worshipping spirits unseen by ordinary people. 'Therefore, Keller's use of shamanism is efficient in emphasizing the existence of hidden tragedies in history, what has not been seen but is clearly there. Keller admits her interest in Korean shamanism, stating that she was drawn to it because it is "a tradition that allows women an unconventional voice in a traditional society" (Young Oak Lee 151). By transforming a former comfort woman into a shaman, Keller

enables her protagonist to unbury what had not been said, encouraging the readers to look beyond the surface of the national history.

The role of the listener is important when the hidden truth is exposed, because without an attentive audience, the act of speech loses its meaning. The listener must take hold of the responsibility of responding to the testimonies. In order to support the testifier who had endured the atrocities in history alone, it is essential that the listener takes the role of consoler, embracing the history of pain. "The joint responsibility" of the survivor and listener makes the repossession and re-emergence of truth possible (Felman 85). Akiko is able to pass on her tragic history by leaving a cassette tape which holds the recorded testimony of her past experience. After Akiko passes away, Beccah is left with a tape which holds the deep secrets of her mother, narrated in Korean. Although she cannot understand the narration without a dictionary. Beccah is willing to dictate the spoken words into a text, listening attentively, writing the narration down, and finally comprehending the past. Such efforts enable her to grasp the truth about her own mother. Beccah becomes an audience of a testimony, a writer of a text, and a reader in the sense that she has to actively read the dictated Korean narrative to make sense of the written text. Through the process, she is able to appreciate her mother as a survivor who lived a hard life during and after the war, replacing the image of a mad mother.

After listening to the tape, Beccah is able to finally understand the

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pieces of Akiko's personal history which Akiko had told in bits and pieces. She recalls the death of her father, how he and her mother had quarreled and how her father died of a heart attack that night. The memory links to another piece of Beccah's memory when Akiko claims that she had killed Beccah's father. When Akiko says "1 killed your father" (comfort Woman 1), Beccah disregards her mother's confession thinking that she is going into another of her shamanistic trances. However, as fragments of Beccah's memory connect to each other, she is able to understand that what she thought as delirious chants of a mad woman was a story of her mother. She is able to understand that the truth may be different from what meets the eye; her father whom she had turned to for help was not a saintly figure, but another exploiter of her mother's body as well as an oppressor who demanded silence and obedience. As Felman states, the listener is "the blank screen on which the event comes to be inscribed for the first time" (57). The listener who had remained oblivious comes to experience the traumatic events through the hearing of testimony, thus becoming a co-owner of the tragic history. By listening to the recorded testimony, Beccah is able to embrace her mother's pain, and that of many other forgotten women who suffered in the comfort stations.

When Beccah had no idea of what her mother had gone through, she could not sympathize with or understand her mother. Rather, because Akiko's seemingly mad chants does not make any sense to Beccah, she fears her own

mother. Akiko remains the other to Beccah before the latter begins to understand her mother through the tape. The recorded tape enables Beccah to finally connect to her mother and the past, maturing into a young independent woman, inheriting her mother's spirits and her history. Therefore Akiko's tape-recorded testimony is for the dead comfort women and also for her living daughter. She pays tribute to all who died in lament, and also enlightens Beccah of the past history. Recording the truth is also a way of expressing herself for Akiko. She talks about her grief which shame and social pressure disallowed her to testify before. From her life in the comfort station and then on. Akiko was not able to talk about her experiences. Even after moving to the U.S. Akiko is prohibited from articulating her pain because of her husband who desperately wants to deny his wife's past lest it would reach the ears of their daughter. However, the gap between Akiko and Beccah dissolves Nvhen Beccah hears and tries to understand the contents in the recorded gut Akiko conducts. Akiko's story thus becomes a narrative of women's history rather than a mad woman's confused shouts, and she is reborn through the narrative memories of Beccah. The daughter resurrects her mother's life and her history by remembering and reconstructing the broken pieces of her mother's life.

Not only is Beccah given the task of remembering the history of Akiko, she is given the responsibility of carrying out ancestral rites for the dead comfort women.

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Beccah-chan, lead the parade of the dead. Lead the Ch'ulssang with the rope of your light. Clear the air with the ringing of your bell, bathe us with your song. When I can no longer perform the chesa for the spirits, we will look to you to feed us." (Comfort Woman 197).

Akiko entrusts Beccah the role of chesa, which is an annual ceremonious act to remember and feed the ancestor spirits. The term 'chesa' in Keller's text is different from that of the traditional chesa in Korean society. The Korean Confucians allow only direct descendants to conduct the ceremonious act of chesa. Mostly, sons give chesa to their parents and ancestors. while daughters are excluded from this ceremony. People without children, especially sons, and people who die early deaths cannot receive the consoling ceremony in the rules of Confucianist rites. Induk's ghost visits Akiko and exposes how brutally the comfort women were treated even after their death. She says that "no one performed the proper rites of the dead" and that there was no one "to write [their] names, to even know [their] names and to remember [them]" (Comfort Woman 38). Not only did they reduce the comfort women to numbers, regarding them as objects. they killed the women and left the bodies to rot without proper burials. The violated and neglected bodies were displayed as an example of punishment, used as a means of threat towards other comfort women who

would dare to resist the Japanese soldiers. Induk's lament reminds the readers how the comfort women were deprived of honorable funerals having no sons to carry out the burial ceremony. However. Akiko is later able to conduct shamanistic chesa for the deceased comfort women because in shamanism, the ceremonies are equally open for all people. Women without children and people who died young are consoled through the shamanistic 'chesa.' Also one can conduct the act even before death which is specifically called 'Sanogu-gut'4. Without distinction between female and male, mothers and childless women, and various unjust discriminations, shamanistic 'chesa' consoles all unfortunate people (Jong Seong Lee 21).

The use of shamanism and the ghostly existence of Induk throughout Keller's novel may seem related to exorcism as several critics have pointed out. However, the supernatural aspects in Keller's text reveals the difficulty of acquiring the denied past: the history of the subaltern. The appearance of ghosts in minority literature signifies as the connecting figure between the past and present, death and li[è, one culture and another" (Kathleen Brogan 152). Akiko, as a shaman living in between the present and past, death and the living, is able to consol the women who died brutally in the comfort camps. the dead children of those women who were aborted by the Japanese, and Akiko herself who

1 'Sanogu-gut' is a death ceremony for those who do not have descendents to mourn for their deaths (Jong Seung Lee 49)

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suffered many deaths in her life. The ceremonious tape appreciates the unnamed people in history, urging Beccah to remember them and console them when Akiko is no longer able to conduct the shamanist chesa for them. Through the shamanistic chesa Beccah will be able to bear their life stories and their stories will be remembered5.

Akiko's request to be remembered by her descendants exquisitely reflects the situation of surviving comfort women in Korea. It is as if Akiko is speaking for them through the cassette tape; because they do not speak fluent English, or not at all, they need someone to pass on their traumatic tragedies. In other words, they need translators of their stories, a transmitter who is willing to listen to their stories and make their history known, thus consoling them and giving them final comfort in life. Translating the past experiences into 'narrative revision" may contribute to the understanding of the past in the present sense (Brogan 156). It would be viable to note that Beccah takes the role of a translator of the tragic history of comfort women. She is capable of translating the Korean language and culture into English, giving an opportunity to comprehend the life of a former comfort woman to the Western readers. Breaking the long silence, the history of Akiko and the comfort women finally

Ghosts delay the final deaths of the oppressed, thus bearing the message: "We will never die and we continue to live until the issue of comfort women is solved. We exist in your memories even when our bodies are dead" (11-chul Kang testimony). flows to the next generation, exposing the hidden narratives of women. In the process of retelling the story of a former comfort woman, Beccah reclaims the name of her mother through the shamanistic chesa, saying [t]his is for your name Omoni, so you can speak it true: Soon Hyo. Soon Hyo. Soon Hyo" (Comfort Woman 209). By repeating the Korean name three times. Beccah liberates Akiko from the forced Japanese name, restoring her identity which the Japanese soldiers and her American husband tried to obliterate.

Although Beccah has been raised in a totally different culture from her mother. Akiko's inheritance will never be erased from Beccah, as Akiko emphasizes by her use of words blood and body. Beccah sits down with a dictionary, and tries to find out the meaning of her mother's spoken words, with little understanding at her first listening. She wonders how her mother could have survived the hardships in life and how she was able to carry the deep secrets for such a long time. As she rewinds and listens to the tape attentively, she is able to emotionally connect to Akiko's story and realizes that she is not only her mother's daughter but a descendant who must remember and retell the lives of the comfort women whose voices were lost in history. It is interesting how Keller notes that Beccah does not comprehend her mother's story in a grammatical sense, but emotionally. Beccah begins to understand her mother's story when she does not try to make literal sense of what her mother recorded, but when she turns up the volume and attentively feels the context. Her

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sensibility and her ability to feel the pain of the women make it possible to tell the story of former comfort women. She understands that Induk was not an evil being who dominated her mother's body, but another victimized woman in history and that there were many violated women in history who could have been her kin. After listening to the traumatic history recorded down in her mother's voice, she starts to write down the critical dates of her mother's history in her notebook.

Akiko's recorded testimony and ceremonious acts influence the present life of Beccah as well as enhancing her understanding of Akiko. Akiko thought that by telling her daughter the shocking history of comfort women and entrusting Beccah with the duty of chesa she would wrongfully burden Beccah, tying her to the past. On the contrary, Beccah is able to finally get over her fear and confusion derived from the ignorance of her roots, and matures into a responsible young woman. Bcccah's knowledge of Akiko's past frees her from undistinguishable pain which is her own burden from childhood. She cannot fully mature without understanding her roots and the past that haunts her mother. Lack of knowledge of the past hinders Beccah from fully growing into an independent adult. Despite her father's attempt to protect her from Akiko's 'shameful' past, burial of truth engraved a bitter wound in both Akiko and Beccah. Because she does not know the hidden past, her mother becomes an alien to her. Akiko drops pieces of her life story against her husband's wishes.

However, her stories could not be fully understood by Beccah who thought of those stories to be fairy tales rather than a true life story of a survivor. Disturbed and ashamed of her mother, believing that there is no logic in her mother's fragmented screams and incomprehensible shamanistic acts, Beccah ceases to really look at her mother. She realizes after Akiko's death that she had neglected to understand and embrace her mother. Auntie Reno advises Beccah to truly look at Akiko, saying "[yjou was her daughter, dah one come from her own body. But you nevah know shit about her, did you?" (Comfort Woman 203). Reno goes on to explain that Akiko was a tough woman who had saved enough money to leave Beccah a respectable house, and that Akiko was not a simple minded woman foolish enough to let Reno take advantage of her. Through this conversation, Auntie Reno prompts Beccah to respect her for the hardships she had gone through. After Auntie Reno's explanation of Akiko and Reno's business relationship, Beccah reunites with Auntie Reno who she had thought of as a miser using her mother as a means of earning money for herself. Finally embracing her mother as who she really was, Beccah starts to make sense of all the incidents in her life which had not been understood, and overcomes the guilt of not knowing her mother.

Reconciliation, reconnection and understanding between the women are presented in images of nature throughout Keller's novel. Dirt is one symbol for the homeland, the connection between mother and daughter. When Akiko is

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taken to the Taedong River to be baptised, she puts a handful of dirt in her mouth and declares never to forget her mother country, that [her] country would always be a part of [herj" (Cornfi)rt Woman 104). Akiko also feeds Beccah the dirt of her motherland by rubbing it to her breast, mixing the dirt in breast milk. Such action reveals Akiko's hope that her daughter would become a strong woman who would never lose her sense of roots, who belongs to the solid land. and who never feels homeless. The image of dirt appears again when Beccah puts ashes of her cremated mother in her tongue, determined to keep a part of her mother in her body and soul. In the end, by sprinkling the ashes in the river Beccah sends her mother back to nature. All rivers flow into the ocean which would eventually lead the ashes to her mother's country.

Bachelard suggests that water is the true eyes of the earth. Water becomes the gaze of the land, the opportunity to get a view of time (51). Water reflects things, and guides human beings with nature's voice and movements. Akiko looks at the reflected image of herself after she has been ravaged in the comfort station and she says that her face no longer remains. Soon Hyo Kim, the Korean young woman with dignity and individuality was killed in the comfort station. The new image reflected in the river cannot be the same person, she has lost her own identity. Although Akiko claims that in the reflection she had no face, that exact disappearance of her lace reveals Akiko's injured soul and body. It reflects her deep wounds, not omitting one corner of her body, accepting a woman without lace. The river takes the naked body wholly never degrading her by the moral values of a male-dominated society.

Female body and the image of nature reappear when Beccah's puberty begins. Akiko and Beccah visit a river, and Akiko slits her daughter's middle finger, and mixes the water and her blood, explaining that Beccah now has a part of the river inside her, and the river holds Beccah by carrying on the drops of blood mixed in the water. The water is a nurturing symbol in Keller's novel; Akiko and Beccah's reconciliation takes place by the riverside. The river is a marginal space where Beccah and Akiko find comfort and it is also a place where they connect to each other. Akiko is a medium between her daughter and nature, and unites them by drawing blood from Beccah's finger. When Akiko leads Beccah to the river and encourages her to drink both her blood and the river, the river becomes Beccah. and Beccah becomes the river. The matter of who is drinking what becomes regardless; it is a matter of interaction and conversation between human being and nature. Beccah's blood flows with the river, thus joining the water. According to Bachelard. the water is an invitation to death, a special kind of death which would let people go back to a shelter (83). The death of'Akiko in the river also signifies her rebirth. The river lets old pain die in the river, and frees Akiko from the past when she dips herself in it. When Akiko was wounded from the forceful abortion, it was the river which cleansed her clotted blood, easing her pain. The river heals and soothes, giving

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new lives after death. The fact that her blood was washed away in the river would mean that a part of her pain had been consoled in the nature. Although she may seem passive even after her escape from the comfort camps, Akiko is able to hold on the female strength of the river, struggling to survive in the marginal space of community in her quiet but resistant way of holding on to her roots. Also, she gets rid of the gap between her mother and herself upon visiting the river together with Beccah. The river functions here as an "invitation of death" as Bachelard mentioned, representing the death of conflict between the two characters, and the death of fragile women figures unable to move away from their anguish and fear.

It is interesting to notice that Akiko, a female figure influenced and cured by the river, resembles the river. The river does not stay at one place; it flows continuously, changing and giving life. Akiko goes through extreme hardships, never allowed to stay in one place. She moves from home to the comfort station, then to the States, and finally towards a place between the real and fantasy, the dead and the living--a marginal space in shamanism. However, just as the water keeps its natural qualities. Akiko never loses her dignity throughout her life despite such violence and oppression. Akiko's consensus with the river distinguishes her ability to overcome her troubles and to emerge as a survivor. The flowing river finds its way to the ocean and Akiko travels towards conciliation and peace, finding her unremembered name, paying tribute to all the women without name.

Ahuji. Omoni. Kun Aniya. Mul Ajumoni. I sing the names by which I have known you, so that you will remember. So I will remember. So that those who come after me will know. Induk. Miyoko. Kimiko. Hanako. Akiko. Soon Hi. Soon Mi. Soon Ja. Soon Hyo. (Comfort I'Vo,nan 1 92)

Akiko reveals the reason for recording the tape; it is to remember the ones who suffered in history, whose stories had been lost in history. By recording the long lost history, Akiko breaks the force which obstructed the natural flow of the painful narrations in the authentic history.

Keller does not merely remember and retell the stories of the comfort women, but goes on to connect the tragic history with the current political circumstances of Korea. Comprehension of the past improves the understanding of the present. As an Asian American writer, she prompts the readers to acknowledge that the history of comfort women from the East may be related to the history of America. Elaine Kim predicates that Asian American artists "challenge the notion of a homogeneous 'American' culture" (46). Likewise, Keller challenges the notion of a homogenous American history by relating the history of comfort women with that of American history, claiming that the

issues unrecorded in text books are tightly knit with American history. Keller stimulates her readers to view the history from different vantage points by bringing the story of an individual comfort woman into historical context. Literary works by immigrants are written from their direct and indirect experience of racial prejudice, colonial pain, and conflicts between generations which make them highly political. In Comjbrt Woman. Keller elucidates the Japanese colonization of Korea. criticizing the making of sex slaves. She also illuminates how the United States posed as a savior, hiding her desire to establish an anti-communist regime in South Korea. Through the constant violation of Akiko's body, first by the Japanese soldiers and later by the American missionary, Keller depicts the history of Korea as a neo-colonial country.

Japan's colonizing methods are evident through the speech of the doctor who aborted Akiko's child. The surgeon constantly talks about the difference of races during Akiko's surgery, speaking of "evolutionary differences between the races, biological quirks that made the women of one race so pure and the women of another so promiscuous" (Comfort Woman 22). The doctor reveals his "pseudoscientific racism" (Kun Jong Lee 446). His identification of Korean women as base animals who "will keep doing it until they die, refusing food or water as long as they have a supply of willing partners" ((l'onifort Woman 22) exposes his own desire to debase the women

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into sex slaves. The doctors prejudice towards Korean women reflects how the Japanese Empire divided the women into two categories. They defined the Japanese women as chaste mothers, while degrading the Korean women into prostitutes. The most efficient method of building a communal society is to define the minority as the adversary. In the making of Japanese Imperialist community. Japan marked out the Koreans as their inferior, discriminating them against the Japanese people. Emphasizing the differences of the two peoples, the Japanese Empire drew a distinction between Japanese and Korean women, giving them contrasting roles as mothers or prostitutes. The Japanese women were valued for their childbearing potentials to produce future soldiers who would serve in the military for the Japanese Empire. In contrast, the Korean women had to serve as comfort women in military camps (Yonson Ahn 209). The making of sex slaves started from ridding them of their national pride. As shown in Soon Hyo's experience in the comfort station, the girls were deprived of their Korean names upon their arrival. The Japanese soldiers called these women Chosen-pi, meaning the genitals of Korean women. Likewise, they were also referred to as public lavatory, which reveals how the soldiers used the comfort women simply as outlets of their sexual desire. The impregnation of the comfort women was considered only as a barrier which disabled the sexual use of female body, and the comfort women were used as sex objects until they could serve the soldiers. When they got sick or got pregnant the soldiers

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disposed the women by killing them or throwing them away like a piece of trash (Ahn 219). Keller portrays the violation of female body in Comfort Woman through the murder of Induk and the forced abortion of Akiko's baby.

The second stage of Akiko's life begins when she escapes from the comfort camp and is found by the missionaries from the United States. In the mission house, Akiko is disturbed by the relationship between the minister and the Korean girls. She sees how girls fall down on their knees in front of the minister, asking for candy and kind words. She also notices how the girls praise the minister's appearance, saying that he has "an aristocrats body" and that his voice is "like God's" (Comfort Woman 68). In response, Richard Bradley reaches out to the girls touching them as if they are pets, giving out gifts and enjoying their admiration. Keller is aware of the neo-colonial presence of the U.S. in post war period. By depicting Bradley as an exploiter of Akiko, she refuses to give hasty credit to the official history which celebrates the U.S. as a liberator. The forced intercourse of Akiko and the American husband represents the power of the United States over Korea. As Spivak demurs, the white men's claim that they "are saving brown women from brown men." cannot be justified when the so called liberators violate the women under the excuse of rescue. In Akiko's case. Bradley poses himself as Akiko's savior by marrying her and taking her to the United States. 1-le declares that he would take Akiko to America after marriage, and explains to his fellow missionaries that he can

guide her" and 'give her a new life" (Comfort Woman 101). Bradley constantly poses Akiko as a helpless little girl and himself as an apostle of God who has the ability to rescue Akiko. When questioned of his favoritism towards Akiko, he quotes the Bible saying '[w1hat man are you, having a hundred sheep. doth not leave the ninety and nine to go after that one which is lost, until he finds it?" (Comfort Woman 67) Regarding Akiko as a lost sheep, he uses the Bible to veil his sexual desire towards her. His biased use of Bible appears again when he suggests that she confesses her past and relent to God:

Tell me! I have heard rumors, terrible rumors, about women being sent north of the Yalu--is that where you've come from? Akiko, the sins of the body will be washed away by the blood of the lamb. His body will become your body; your flesh, His. Just give yourself to Him! (Comfort Woman 94)

Bradley does not consider her his equal and although he has heard rumors about comfort women, he does not make any efforts to understand what happened to Akiko during the war. He has his ears shut, just as the Japanese soldiers Akiko had to deal with in the camp. Instead of accepting her as who she is, he expects her to be an obedient wife, a good sex partner and a mother of his child. He does not understand that marital life requires communication and

37

understanding. not just obedience and sex. Although he claims to save her from the ostracism of the traditional Korean society, Bradley himself oppresses her in the name of God. "Wife, be subject to your husband, as sayeth the Lord, for as Christ is head of the church, the husband is the head of the wife and savior of her body" (Comfort Woman 112). Bradley is not different from the patriarchal Korean society. In the traditional patriarchal society, female chastity and obedience were thought to be virtuous. So when comfort women returned to their hometown, they were denounced as prostitutes who were unable to keep the highly valued chastity. Such prejudice kept the former comfort women from coming out with their traumatic experiences for half a century. Likewise, Christianity values the virtue of chastity. thus Bradley repeats the same patriarchal oppression. His violent behavior and silencing of Akiko is quite contrasting to his earlier pleas for confession. The phrase 'give yourself to Him!" is senseless because although Bradley insists that Akiko submit to God, he is at the same time forcing her to serve himself sexually. Without admitting, he becomes another violator of Akiko rather than a savior.

Keller illustrates the desire of domination which lies under the masquerade of rescuing through the hypocritical behavior of Bradley. Although he hides under the façade of a saintly rescuer, he possesses the same patriarchal ideology. Accentuating chastity and obedience as critical values of women, Bradley suppresses Akiko as much as the Japanese soldiers and the

Confucianist society of Korea. He silences Akiko when she wishes to speak of her past, striking her and saying that her silence should be continued in order to save their daughter from shame. Physical violence is repeated in the house of a so called American liberator--Akiko is sexually and spiritually exploited again just as she had been in the comfort camps. As Akiko had earlier acknowledged, the war is not over for a former comfort woman. In the place of Japanese soldiers, the American husband exists and she is still unable to regain her identity as an individual, as Soon Hyo Kim. Bradley calls her Akiko, a name given by the Japanese soldiers in the camp wounding her spiritually in result. Although she does not inform him of her real name and reluctantly succumbs to his name-calling, she still feels "as if he had slapped me with the name" (Comfort Woman 93). Akiko understands her marriage as extension of life in the comfort camps. Life with Bradley is not the beginning of liberation for Akiko. She comprehends her situation, saying that she would be "locked in a cubicle at the camps, trapped under the bodies of innumerable men" (Com/bri Woman 106). The continuous violation of Akiko's body resembles how Korea as a nation was colonized by the Japanese. then in the name of liberty, became a neo-colonized country of the United States.

However, Akiko does not silently surrender to Bradley's oppression. Akiko is fully aware of his sexual infatuation underneath the pleading conduct and does not consider him as her benefactor. She narrates that she recognized

40

the similarity between her husband and the Japanese soldiers who all wanted to fly up against [her] half-starved girls' body with its narrow hips and new breasts" (Comfort Woman 95). Akiko also perceives Bradley as another man who wishes to sexually abuse her, not as a liberator. She does not submit to him or to his Christianity, and when he asks her to recite her prayers, she merely parrots the memorized prayers while thinking of Induk. Induk is a deceased comfort woman who bore the name of Akiko before Soon Hyo. She died a brutal death after resisting and denouncing the soldiers, claiming the independence of her body and country from Japan and its soldiers. She refuses to be a sex object in the comfort camp. yelling "I am Korea, I am a woman, I am alive. I am seventeen, I had a family just like you do, I am a daughter, I am a sister" (Comfort Woman 20). Induk does not surrender to the violence, and exposes the truth that the comfort system is in fact a violation of human rights and dignity. By revealing her Korean name, her age and her position as a daughter in a family, she announces that she is not an object but a human being. She bellows the recipes of her mother and sings the Korean national anthem, unveiling the Korean identity denied under the Japanese name, Akiko 40. Disturbed by Induk's screams of truth, the soldiers kill Induk as an example, silencing the rest of the comfort women. Later in life. Induk's spirit visits Akiko and nurtures her through her troubles. When the spirit visits Akiko, she feels orgasm, which Bradley sees and condemns as an act of sin. However, Akiko does not comprehend the intercourse between Induk's spirit and herself as shameful. By uniting with Induk's spirit Akiko is finally able to free herself from her husband. Induk empowers Akiko to declare her sexual independence, announcing that she would never again lie down for a man to be consumed.

Akiko transmits the strength she inherited from Induk to Beccah. Through the legacy of women in Comfort Woman, the readers are able to see how the wounds of the past may be converted into strength to live through the hardships of the present. By depicting how a Korean comfort woman's past history influences the life of an American daughter. a contemporary figure living in the United States, Keller undoes the rigid division between the history of America and Korea, the past and the present. The open ending of Comfort Woman which closes with Beccah's dream is significant because such ending reflects the continuity of history. how the small seed bearing the truth can be reborn in the present.

Instead of ocean. I swam through sky, higher and higher, until, dizzy with the freedom of light and air, I looked down to see a thin blue river of light spiraling down to earth, where I lay sleeping in bed, coiled tight around a small seed planted by my mother, waiting to be horn. (Comfort Woman 213)

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the similarity between her husband and the Japanese soldiers who all "wanted to fly up against [her] half-starved girls' body with its narrow hips and new breasts" (Comfort Woman 95). Akiko also perceives Bradley as another man who wishes to sexually abuse her, not as a liberator. She does not submit to him or to his Christianity, and when he asks her to recite her prayers, she merely parrots the memorized prayers while thinking of Induk. Induk is a deceased comfort woman who bore the name of Akiko before Soon Hyo. She died a brutal death after resisting and denouncing the soldiers, claiming the independence of her body and country from Japan and its soldiers. She refuses to be a sex object in the comfort camp, yelling "I am Korea, I am a woman, I am alive. I am seventeen, I had a family just like you do, I am a daughter, I am a sister" (comfort Woman 20). Induk does not surrender to the violence, and exposes the truth that the comfort system is in fact a violation of human rights and dignity. By revealing her Korean name, her age and her position as a daughter in a family, she announces that she is not an object but a human being. She bellows the recipes of her mother and sings the Korean national anthem, unveiling the Korean identity denied under the Japanese name, Akiko 40. Disturbed by Induk's screams of truth, the soldiers kill Induk as an example, silencing the rest of the comfort women. Later in life. Induk's spirit visits Akiko and nurtures her through her troubles. When the spirit visits Akiko, she feels orgasm, which Bradley sees and condemns as an act of sin. However, Akiko does not comprehend the intercourse between Induk's spirit and herself as shameful. By uniting with Induk's spirit Akiko is finally able to free herself from her husband. Induk empowers Akiko to declare her sexual independence, announcing that she would never again lie down for a man to be consumed.

Akiko transmits the strength she inherited from Induk to Beccah. Through the legacy of women in Comfort Woman, the readers are able to see how the wounds of the past may be converted into strength to live through the hardships of the present. By depicting how a Korean comfort woman's past history influences the life of an American daughter, a contemporary figure living in the United States. Keller undoes the rigid division between the history of America and Korea, the past and the present. The open ending of comfort Woman which closes with Beccah's dream is significant because such ending reflects the continuity of history. how the small seed bearing the truth can be reborn in the present.

Instead of ocean, 1 swam through sky, higher and higher, until, dizzy with the freedom of light and air. I looked down to see a thin blue river of light spiraling down to earth, where I lay sleeping in bed, coiled tight around a small seed planted by my mother, waiting to be born. (Comfort Woman 213)

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The story of the subaltern needs to be heard and understood, it "depends upon every one of us to come into being" (Trinh T. Minh-ha 119). Once a story is told it is bound to spread, dismantling the authentic history. No longer a secret, the effect of comfort women's stories linger in the public discourse, stimulating the readers to look beyond the official history and try to estimate what really happened, and also what is happening at an unspecified time and place" (Minh-ha 133). Considering that Comfort Woman is now widely read in studies of Asian American literature and culture, it would be relevant to state that Keller's aim at making the issue of comfort woman known to a multitude of people has succeeded.

111. Struggling with the Oppressed Past: Chang-rae Lee's A Gesture Life.

Chang-rae Lee's protagonist finds himself living a life of gestures, as his daughter Sunny points out during one of their arguments. Living "[a] whole life of gestures and politeness," Franklin Hata does not realize that his polite lifestyle does not guarantee him a successful relationship with society and neighbors A Gesture Life 95). Instead, such aloof manners cause him to fail in his relationship with others. Hospitalized after a mild fire in his house, Hata ruminates about his past, and struggles to find out what went wrong in his lilè. The whole text consists of his past juxtaposed with his present life as an old maii in town. Despite his desires to move away from his past experience in World War II, memories of Kkuhtae, a Korean comfort woman, remain unlorgotten. Hiding behind the image of good Doc Ilata, he runs away from his dreadful memories of the past, which reveals how traumatic the experience must have been. His silence ironically reveals the pain he hides. Unable to be the subject of his past memories, he is subjugated by the past. He cannot recall his experiences nor is he able to completely forget them. Foucault states that

"[there] is no binary division to be made between what one says and what one does not say: we must try to determine the different ways of not saying such things" (27), and by exploring beyond the rigid politeness and silence of his protagonist. Lee leads his readers to understand the complex reasons beneath

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