Date of Award

4-1-2022

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Department

English

First Advisor

Vanessa Corredera

Abstract

Min Jin Lee's novel Pachinko (2017) portrays the historically based lives of a displaced Korean family during Japan's colonization of Korea from 1905-1945. The novel's attention to the ways that colonial endeavors complicate Confucian family and national structures exemplifies the interrelation between gender and racial oppression facing Lee's Korean women in both the public and private domain.

However, by centering female voices all too often silenced, Lee also depicts resistance modes that subvert such oppression. Using feminist and postcolonial theory, historical analysis, and close reading analysis, this project examines both the construction of oppression and the subversive resistance measures taken by Korean women, ultimately arguing for the necessity of articulating local specificities instead of universalizing and homogenizing the experience of women worldwide'

Subject Area

Lee, Min Jin. Pachinko--Criticism and interpretation; Families--Korea--Fiction; Women--Korea--Social life and customs

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