Abstract

This study aims to explain the literary significance of modern female subjectivity portrayed in the novels of Kim Myung-soon through Judith Butler’s theory of ethical subjectivity and to highlight its value. Butler argues that the violence of ‘abstract universality’ should be exposed, and an imperfect subject as a ‘vulnerable singularity’ must assume responsibility through ‘giving an account of oneself’. The modern female subjects in Kim Myung-soon’s novels experience objectification through the normative violence of modernity and undergo various forms of tangible and intangible violence. They encounter experiences where their own and others’ bodies are projected through violence, and they constantly fail in their efforts to justify their conditions of emergence, thus confronting alterity within themselves. In confronting alterity, these modern female subjects do not conceal their ‘passivity,’ ‘sensitivity,’ and ‘responsiveness,’ but rather express them openly. This takes the form of writing letters (Turkey(Chilmyeonjo)), being aware of their dependency on others and recognizing the possibility of solidarity with other women (‘Looking Back’), or contemplating relationality through literature and reconfiguring the subject (‘Tansil and Joo Young’). The ethical discourses enacted by modern female subjects as imperfect subjects reveal the necessity to revisit the excluded subjects in the history of literature.