![]() But Park Geun-hye adopted her father’s method of patriarchal authoritarianism. And indeed, when Kim Jiyoung was published in Korea in 2016, there was a female president: Park Geun-hye, the daughter of military dictator Park Chung-hee. “When you girls grow up, maybe we’ll even have a female president!”, speculated Jiyoung’s mother to her young daughter. “The world had changed a great deal, but the little rules, contracts and customs had not, which meant the world hadn’t actually changed at all.” Kim Jiyoung can be seen as a sacrifice: a protagonist who is broken in order to open up a channel for collective rage Jiyoung’s life is also set against more positive developments, such as new legislation against gender discrimination – but the path to progress is serpentine. Cho spotlights the Korean financial crisis of 1997, after which increases in wage inequality and barriers to social mobility contributed to a sense of despair, fuelling misogynistic sentiments. Her derangement is the only way out of the cramped paradox of gender-based roles.Īs time passes, the novel shows how attitudes towards gender are entwined with socioeconomic issues. ![]() Cho’s formal excision of any sense of imaginative possibility is highly effective in creating an airless, unbearably dull world in which Jiyoung’s madness makes complete sense. ![]() ![]() What does it mean to narrate a life in a strictly chronological fashion? The linearity of the account feels claustrophobic, with the case-study style objectifying Jiyoung and stripping her of her interiority. ![]()
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