Korean Literature during the Colonial and Postwar Era - Essay Example

Korean Literature Table of Contents Introduction 3 Romantic Love: An Idea in Korean Literature During Colonial and Postwar Era 4 Conclusion 9 Bibliography 10 Introduction Literature is regarded as the reflection of life and society. A literature of a nation evolves from its socio-political customs, beliefs and rituals. In this regard, Korea is not an exception either. The trajectory of the Korean literature, since its inception, is not smooth like any other literature across the globe as it has witnessed lots of transition in different times. Throwing a little bit of close inspection to the history of Korean literature, one would definitely find out that Korean literature has faced complete metamorphosis regarding its theme, language, character portrayal and language. This is because Korea has faced a lot of change in its socio-political and economic structure especially during the war years and later. There has been a considerable change in the social, political and economic structure of Korea during the post-war era. Lots of infiltration and immigration evoked a space for the new generation to exercise common global values of humanity and were able to break-through the conventionalities and hard core traditional values of ancient Korea. All these changes found its expression in literature and changed the entire course of Korean literature in the latter half of the twentieth century. Love and romanticism, in its truest essence, started finding its way in literature of Korea only during the post-war era. The greatest example of this reflection could be found in the pages of the great novel, “Picture Bride”. On the other hand, a lot has been discussed about the social situation and conventionalism in Korea during the first half of the twentieth century and is well recorded in the pages of “Extravagance and Authenticity” Romantic Love: An Idea in Korean Literature During Colonial and Postwar Era A clear contrast between “Picture Bride” and “Extravagance and Authenticity” would let one precisely learn the difference of social attitude and its reflection in literature. “Picture Bride” is a post war Korean novel that asserts the space, liberty and self-awareness. This space was the consequence of war which subsequently resulted into an interaction at a cross-gender level and the choice for social mate was made legitimate. Far beyond the periphery of social stigma and objection from the conservative regimes of the society, “Picture Bride” emerged as a document of new realism and social protest where there was enough space for love and romanticism in its truest color without any barrier of caste, creed or gender. The concept of “Romantic Love and the Self” in the literature of the early modern Korea is typical and states an archetypal relation between colonizer and colonized. The relentless effort of the colonizer to depersonalize the colonized through the praxis based on the demeaning representations and depriving the colonized from the power which the colonized ought to recover. In this battle of self and identity crisis, the predominance of the quest for nativity takes a large subjectivity and tries to incorporate literature influenced by social change into greater realms. At the outset, modernization in the Korean culture was viewed as the acceptance or following of western model. Modernization in early twentieth century in Korea was viewed as it was explained by Kim Uchang in “Extravagance and Authenticity: Romantic Love and Self in Early Modern Korean Literature”: “Modernization brought a cultural crisis-of a dimension incomparably greater than any other in Korean history; it involved a fundamental expansion or change of the horizon of existing cultural values and models”. Kim further analyses the initiation of modernity and envisaged modernity in the early twentieth century as a problem of the Cultural Revolution. The actual feeling related to the concept “being Koreans” emerged from this sense of cultural crisis and quest for identity during the early twentieth century in Korean literature. While traversing the path of Korean literature, during the early twentieth century, the example of romantic love, and the kind of role it exercised in constituting the self or identity was perceived as the requirement of the exigencies of modernity. The entire process is placed in the colonial context and romantic love was viewed in the light of the process assimilation of a foreign culture which was completely alien to the natives and this concept prevailed until romance became the integral and naturalized part of the modern self in Korea. Romantic love was introduced as an extravagant idea in most of the literary works of the early twentieth century in Korea. For example in the novel, “The Records of the Newly-Wed”, one can notice that the family of the bridegroom belongs to strata of the well-off middle class. The bridegroom was educated in Japan and is shown working at the construction company. The reason for citing this example is to display that the family has a financial means and the social stand point of the husband within the political structure of the colonial culture that supports the capacity of forbearing, generosity and power to reconcile eventually the humane elements of the story. The openness pertaining to human reflex was far beyond the limits of the tradition and the ethics encompassing a problem of its own kind. The pivotal virtues in the world centering moral choice are forgiveness and tolerance, which developed in any colonized culture after a long-drawn interpersonal communication and cross-cultural exchanging communication. For Korea too the acceptance of “free love’’ was not easy as it was viewed as the indigenous part of western culture and an imposed custom on the colonized. However, the romantic love as seen as the extravagant idea started the mechanism of becoming a natural integral part of the native culture through a form which was credible emotional experience and gradually it made purchase on the social reality and along with the meditation of the space that is reflective of the internal sensibility and the space of interpersonal communication. Eventually, in the Korean society too romantic love became the natural part of human personality operating as an apparatus where the harmony finds a blend with the social reality. Romantic love becomes authentic when it attains the emotional plane and ceases to be an “idée fixe” which is extravagant and forms a natural and spontaneous part of the individual and community in the proportionate existential space. The phenomenon that instigates romantic love not to be extravagant is the one that actually habituate oneself to colonialization. Far beyond the praxis of subjectivity, the Korean literature completely changed its course of action in the later half of the twentieth century. This could be best illustrated through the novel “Picture Bride” written by Yoshiko Uchida. The novel is an outcome of the social protest and great change in the nature of cultural movement by the act of accepting all that is modern and has come from the western part of the world. But at the same time, it is a clear document asserting the value of security and safety one can get within the premises of their respective native countries. On the same plain, the novel is a testimony bearing the tale of a typical ritual of match-making prevailing in the nineteenth and twentieth century Japan and Korea. During the early nineteenth century, many Japanese men in quest for fortune moved to the west coast line in America and after gaining a considerable amount of fortune decided to settle in Hawaii and different parts of America and looked for prospective bride for marriage. Due to the immense regulation on the custom of free love match-making was done by a co-ordination of a match-maker against a sum of money and the brides were selected only through picture. The bridegroom never used to receive any chance to come across each other before marriage. “Picture Bride” is a novel on a Japanese woman Hana Omiya, who discards her small village and her belief and heads towards her prospective groom in America, a young gentlemen well-off after a good conquest over the fortune and is about to get married. Hana only could dream and aspire about her prospective groom, a young, dynamic and rich man about whom she has only heard stories about but never received the chance to come across. Hana consequently heads for her man of dreams and leaves whatever own she had. Hana’s plight of imagination and her world of fantasy are very much distant from reality. The novel portrays the catastrophe, immigrant men and women had to face during and after the World War II. Hana and her man Taro Takeda soon realized that many dreams in their world of fantasy will remain unrealized as they have seen their friends die and leaving the foreign country in pursuit of security, trust and safety. Hana and Takeda are shown detained at the prison camps and soon the number of their material contents were being reduced only to a fortune of four suitcases. But this was not the end, they gained the mistrust and anguish of anybody non-Japanese around them which included a huge regime of their neighbors, their employers and the government for whom they worked hard for thirty years and all those hard work was being paid with misery and mistrust. The ending part of the novel shows the relentless fight of the couple along with millions such unfortunate to find a safe future and gather courage and strength to build the future. The prolific World War II had immense impact on Yoshiko Uchida and after the war she wrote four novels all for the adults. “Picture Bride” was one of them. Through this novel, Yoshiko tried to display the havoc aftermath of war on the society and politics of the nations which completely changed the course of normal lives of individual. With due time and subsequent course of action, the society also changed; and through war and open cross border, a lot of space was open for cultural exchanges and communication that changed many prevailing outlook and perception of the time into which many western ideas percolated with ease, naturality and spontaneity . Today they have become the integral part of the Korean culture but during the transition period, the change was encapsulated in the literature of the time as documents bearing the brunt of the turbulent time. Poetess Cathy Song is marked famous for her feminist outlook and interpretation of the texts which she has created. But apart from that her texts also indicates cultural transition going on in the various canon of literature due to social crisis and change. The collection by Cathy Song named “Picture Bride” is one such example of poems that ensures the effect of cultural change guided by social changes and practices which is evident precisely in the poem “Lost Sister” from the collection, the predicaments the Asian immigrants come across in America in their society. This also forms a genuine testimony as Cathy herself grew up in America as a Korean and Chinese descendent and faced the problems of cultural antagonism from close context. The poem “Lost Sister” is about a Chinese woman who is eager to adhere to the openness of the American society as it renders liberty and space to all where as the traditional culture and society of China curb women rights. Initially a sense of dilemma pervades the mind and soul of the woman and she passes through a relentless battle but at last succumbs to the wide – spacious society of United States, forgetting her own roots and culture. The ending of the poem reaffirms this fact with more vigor as it states, “You find you need China/ your one fragile identification”. The word “fragile” emphasizes on the theme of cultural crisis running through the poem. The word “fragile” also indicates the loosing and weak connect of the woman with her motherland and nativity and despite of her awareness of the Chinese blood running down her vein, she is compelled to accept the culture of America and with her complete choice as she is aware of the freedom and space provided in the culture of America for the women (Song, “Picture Bride”). Conclusion Thus, after having a thorough gaze at the total course of the Korean literature; it becomes obvious that the course of Korean literature at the first half of the twentieth century and the Korean literature during the later half of the twentieth century are significantly different. This difference has mainly evolved due to the impact of the war on society, politics, economy and general lives of the individual. Therefore, the change in society paved the way for the precise change in literature of colonial era and postwar era. The Korean literature bears the witness of its social change in a very obvious manner. Bibliography Song, Cathy. Picture Bride. Yale University Press, 1983. Uchang, Kim, “Extravagance and Authenticity: Romantic Love and the Self in Early Modern Korean Literature”, May 08, 2010. Korea Journal. No date. Uchida, Yoshiko, Picture Bride. University of Washington Press, 1997. Read More