김난영의 <토담>에 나타난 혜수의 양반의식

Abstract

This is a study of Kim Ronyoung'sClay Wals which focuses on howHaesu, the heroine, reveals her voice and keps her Korean identity bykeping the yangban consciousnes in America. Haesue, a descendant ofyangban , the Korean aristocratic las, has to cros the boundariesof race,clas, and gender in America fter faling into the lowest social status bymarying a son of the peasant clas and being forced to lead anexiled lifein America. However, Haesu tries to preserve a self-determined identity asa yangban woman and Korean ationalist in the American society dividedin race and clas as wel as in gender. Although she obeys her husband asa wife acording to the Confucian ethics on the hierarchicalrelationshipbetwen men and women, she doesn't show any respect for him becauseof discrepancy in social standings. Haesu also reveals her strong nationalconsciousnes based on the goal of recovering heryangban clas in Korea.As a way of preserving heryangban status in America, Haesu transfersher precious value ofyangban consciousnes to her daughter. As asecond-generation American-born Korean, her daughter eproduces therace-clas-gender elated identity in her imigrant mother's life byfolowing Haesu's Confucian ethics. As Haesue wants her daughter tomary an Americanized yangban and to vercome her unmatched clasunion that has troubled her mariage, she finds an uper class KoreanAmerican man for her daughter. The nding scene of her daughter'sopening a leter from the uper clas man sugests that her daughter canmaintain ot only the yangban status of her mother's family but also be assimilated in the American society by taking a matrimonial union with a transformed yangban of the Korean-origin American upper class.