Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.This essay highlights the way Keller’s novel, Comfort Woman (1997) explores the connection between women’s sexual bodies, colonialism and Korean nationalism. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. Copyright of Concentric: Literacy & Cultural Studies is the property of National Taiwan Normal University, Department of English and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
The second part of this paper explores how Beccah's use of Korean and her metonymic understanding of Akiko's unedited testimony is an on-going practice, constantly reweaving different layers of meaning and historical memories, and eventually rewriting the colonizer's versions of the victimized women's lives, beyond a strict sense of national and cultural boundaries. The first part of this paper problematizes the oppressive ideological mechanisms that frustrated victimized women's attempts to speak out, such as Japanese imperialism and patriarchal and anti-colonial nationalist discourses in Korea. This paper analyzes the subalternity of the former Korean comfort women under Japanese imperialism and explores the (im)possibility of their enunciation from various postcolonial theoretical perspectives.
0 kommentar(er)
