Since the spread of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, feminist literature has become a significant field in contemporary culture to introduce feminist concepts, the struggles of women, and the oppression women suffer. Through the power of writing and storytelling, authors illustrate the possible situations a woman may face.
As feminism is a major concern of most women, one can not concentrate feminist narratives on a single culture to understand the broad field. In different social contexts, writers from France, Korea, and China expand feminist lenses on the mother-daughter relationship, self-identity and ambiguity, and female tenacity against fate.
A Woman’s Story, Winter in Sokcho, The Vegetarian, and Qiu Yuan are four impressive and emotional books in their themes and storylines.
France: ‘A Woman’s Story’ by Annie Ernaux
“I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world,” Annie Ernaux writes in her book, A Woman’s Story. Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, the French writer embarks on a daunting journey through time as she seeks to capture the real woman — who is not a mother, not a wife, but just an individual with her own dreams, aspirations, and experiences.
Opening from a personal narrative of the slow suffering and depression in a trance from the death of a beloved one, the writer’s delicate and emotional writing brings readers to life with scenes without the existence of the mother.
Ernaux’s mom lay on the bed silently like a small mummy — with her eyes closed. It was the daughter’s first and only time seeing her mother like this. She devoted herself to the preparation of funeral arrangements before sorrow invaded her mind. Days following the funeral, she would start to cry for no reason when being alone and doing nothing — because she realized the one and only one who loved her the most would never be alive anywhere in the world again.
“…born on the outskirts of a small Normandy town, and who died in the geriatric ward of a hospital in the suburbs of Paris,” is a quote Ernaux writes about her mother’s origin and end, but the woman’s story is more than that.
Although a factory girl from a lower social class, she tried to live up to the best possible image people could have of her kind: “Factory girls, but nonetheless respectable.” Her youth was her battle against fate to escape the dull certainties: inevitable poverty, the threat of alcoholism, and the danger of slipping into bad habits. Mom worked hard with ambition and self-discipline, but she was still powerless in front of the arranged patterns of the universe. The birth of the daughter meant her girlhood poem for escaping to the bigger and richer world would have to be realized in another manner.
The woman loves while controlling her daughter. She tried her best efforts to offer her baby girl the best while ignoring her emotions and blaming her needs. She hoped for her to have a better life while underestimating things that genuinely matter to her. Those reproachful moments always come to mind when Ernaux think of her mother’s affection and pride for her. When she became her satisfied image, their distance had already widened. The writer’s interest in Le Monde and Bach was a way of exposing economic supremacy to her mother, and she could not recognize fragility under the woman’s firm surface.
The contradiction of the mother-daughter relationship is a topic that lacks a perfect solution. Mothers are experiencing motherhood for the first time, and daughters are learning to be good daughters. Because of their complicated love, they both strive to fulfill each other’s desires.
Korea: ‘Winter in Sokcho’ by Elisa Shua Dusapin
It’s winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down, magnifying the scents, the octopus, and the loneliness. A young French-Korean woman works as a receptionist in a guesthouse. One day, the arrival of an unexpected guest — a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape — disturbs her stable life and heart.
The spiritual intersection of “her” and “him” begins when she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an “authentic” Korea. They visit the border and see the history, the water and the mountain. Sokcho, in his perspective, is differentiated from her perception — the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works, and the endless loneliness.
As she is pulled into his vision, she expects to be the female protagonist of his story. Her mind tells her: “I wish he draws me.” She cannot explain her personal obsession to him. Perhaps she is gaining a sense of attention for the first time from him, the curiosity and stimulation he gives, or the inner aspiration to understand her French identity. Rather than understanding herself through his drawings, she aims to explore herself and the world independently. However, she finds no way to leave her mother and the city she grew up in.
Does he like her? Perhaps, but his feelings are not as strong as hers. He hopes to find his story and the meaning of his existence.
The two test each other, pulling back and forth, wanting to speak but holding back — “a relationship with no ending” is both the best beginning and ending for them. Beyond a romance, it’s a story about a woman’s pain and struggle for growth, desire, and self-recognition.
Korea: ‘The Vegetarian’ by Han Kang
Yeong-hye had nightmares of blood and brutality, driving her to renounce eating meat. This is the start of her independence and consciousness, but also the start of an interruption of her marriage and family. Yeong-hye’s aspiration to be a vegetarian makes her actions seem bizarre from the perspectives of her family members. As they reassert their will of control over her, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Their desperate attempts to change her lead Yeong-Hye to the brink of collapse. She aspires to be a plant and act likewise, but the world does not tolerate her.
Yeong-hye’s husband is the first character to conflict with her. His intention for his marriage was suitable instead of love. He believed the wife by his side was an ordinary woman without strong skills and will and who would follow a wife’s responsibilities. As a dramatic change happens to Yeong-hye, he doesn’t understand and bear her sudden autonomy and consciousness. Compared to his long-term ignorance and non-affection, are Yeong-hye’s actions truly sudden?
During the vigorous conflict that happened in Yeong-hye’s parents’ house, her brother-in-law was the first one to take off the knife and lift her to the hospital when she cut her wrist. He understands Yeong-hye’s psychology more than anyone else who surrounds her, but he has a sexual desire for her. In the name of artistic content creation, he raped Yeong-hye to fulfill personal satisfaction. A nude body is the purest when it is called “art,” and one’s morality is the dirtiest when it becomes hypocrisy.
When witnessing the crossover between her sister and husband, Yeong-hye’s sister maintained her rationality by calling the police to arrest her husband and protect her sister. She hated Yeong-hye for having sexual intercourse with her husband, but she blamed her husband more for inducing her sister, whose mind was believed not clear. By the time of sending Yeong-hye to the mental hospital and seeing her sister’s suffering, she questions this decision and tries to understand Yeong-hye’s mind with sympathy. Did she make any mistakes? She is also tired when taking on responsibilities and working hard to have a “good” life.
Yeong-hye and her sister are victims of patriarchy. They live in a society that disciplines them with identities of “daughter,” “wife,” and “mother,” forcing them to gradually forget their original personalities. Women are individuals who desire to live with autonomy and freedom. Their patriarchal surroundings nonetheless dissimulate their will and needs in the name of the daughters’, the wives’, and the mothers’ dereliction of duty. The only mistake they make is being females in a patriarchal world.
China: ‘Qiu Yuan’ by Yang Benfen
The cover of this book writes:
In 1914, the world welcomed a person named “Qiu Yuan.”
In 1918, the Chinese language developed the character “她(she).”
Qiu Yuan lived, struggled, despaired, and experienced happiness. Today, her 80-year-old daughter tells the world the story of this ordinary woman.
A grandma writes the story of her mother, Qiu Yuan. She is the mother of the Chinese writer Yang Benfen, an 80-year-old woman who started her writing journey in late adulthood. Qiu Yuan represents the women in Chinese history who were like driftwood, their fates unknown, struggling to survive.
In the beginning, five-year-old Qiu Yuan is a naive and innocent girl living with her brother and parents in Luoyang, a city in central China. She likes treading water barefoot after it rains. And, she hasn’t yet prepared for the sufferings arranged by fate.
For 88 years, she completed the 810-kilometre route from Luoyang to Hunan on foot, with endurance and rigour. As Qiu Yuan herself writes, “Having experienced all the joys and sorrows of life, I ultimately met such an end.” In adolescence, she lost her father; in middle life, she lost her husband; and in seniority, she lost her son. Numerous burdens, an absent husband, poverty, hunger, discrimination, and separation — weighed heavily on her, connecting the struggles of her life.
The lives of thousands of Chinese women, not only Qiu Yuan, were hard and despairing. By accepting and enduring the hardships of life, they presented the tenacity and perseverance of women.
The empathy, softness, and sensitivity of women are chains that society, men, and even women try to use to trap a woman’s development. More than traditional education from patriarchy, women in today’s world are facing misconceptions related to an independent image — a female figure who maintains a dignified ideology, economic stability, and liberation from marriage or maternity, which is an absolute perspective that ignores the freewill of an individual and the differences among individuals.
Feminist narratives in literature broaden the perspectives of women by highlighting not only glamorous women but also individuals from different occasions, classes, regions, and cultures, encouraging people to critically reflect on the authenticity of feminism.
The sky for women is no longer low, their wings are no longer thin, and the burdens around them are no longer heavy. Women can soar, fly anywhere, become anyone, and do anything.