Women And Refugee Children Behind The Image Of The East-west Cultural Differences

After the armistice of the Korean War in July 1953, more than 50 yearshave passed. Yet the nation living in Korean Peninsula is still, countingon the reunion of the separated families and the unification of thePeninsula. In South Korea, there have been thousands of literary worksabout the Korean War and the people of the wartime since the outbreak ofthe Korean War. The prejudiced ideological criticism of the War in theearly period has gradually given way to the profound reflection about thewar in these works. Moreover, the objective thinking and the thoroughstudy on the War have urged the people in South Korea to restore the ruinedhomeland and to criticize the moral decay during the War. Because theKorean War, which appears to be a civil war to Korean people, is provento be a war waged by the two super powers, the United States of Americaand the Union Soviet Socialist Republics, and a war of fratricide, mostof the works are about the refugees, while few about the bloody battlesof the same nation. Meanwhile, The Korean War has cost the U.S.A, a leadingpower of the War, a substantial amount of money and an alarming death toll.More and more people begin to challenge the right to wage the War anddenounce the police action of the U.S.A. Being sharply different from theliterary works of South Korea, there are very few stories deal with thelife of refugees, while a great many of battles.The most formidable crime of a war is to cause both the death ofinnocent people and the moral decay of the people. Therefore, the warstories about women and children become the most convincing facts todenounce the war crimes. These stories of South Korea mainly deal withthe miserable life of the refugees to both reprehend the appalling Warand lament the casualties comprising one sixth of the total population on Korean Peninsula. In South Korea, during the late 1950s, three shortstories, "Accidental Firing", "Shorty Kim", and "Disbelief the Times",which mirror the sufferings and despair of the whole nation, especiallywomen and children, have gained popularity and attention immediatelyafter their publications. These three works have not only shaken off thesentimentalism, desperateness, bitterness, the features of the works ofthe previous period, and the prejudiced opinions of ideology, butencouraged the people to be courageous enough to overcome the difficultiescause by the War as well. In 1992, American Jewish writer, Chaim Potok,who has been in Korea as a military chaplain for three years since 1953,has published a novel named "I Am the Clay" to disclose the great sufferingof the Korean people. However, after the detailed analyses of the text,it is not difficult to find out that the most important idea that ChaimPotok wants to convey in this story is not the great suffering of thepeople, but the religious belief and pious mind that Korean people shouldhave.In all the South Korean and American stories mentioned above, themiserable images of Korean refugees are portrayed. However, the storiesare stated from the different perspectives between South Korean writersand the American writer respectively. Therefore, two different points ofview are expressed. One is the idea of unrelenting efforts to restore thehomeland and overcome the suffering; the other is the westerners' inrootedprejudice against the eastern world.I will analyze each story mentioned above to expose the differentideas belonging to South Korea and the U. S. respectively about the KoreanWar. That is, an introspection and self-reflection, and the westernunderstanding of the eastern "others". Then, I will have more detailedstudy to dig out the reasons caused these differences. Referring to a great deal of historical materials, this thesisdenounces the Korean War as the atrocity afflicting women and childrenwith ferocious violence, and extols the unyielding volition of Koreanwomen. Furthermore, I will use the image theory of Comparative Study andtheories of Post-colonialism in this paper to unveil the falsehood andunfairness of the Orientalism to appeal to the equal status of the easternand western world, and promote the peaceful dialogue between these twoworlds.