Searching for the Missing Mother-Woman with a Feminist Curiosity in Kyung- sook Shin's Please Look After Mom

In her internationally acclaimed novel, Please Look Alter Mom, by depicting the disappearance of an old illiterate mother- woman and her family's desperate search, Kyung- sook Shin reveals the invisibility of a Korean mother with the fragmented memories of the guilt- plagued family. In doing so, she (re)raises critical questions in relation to maternal love, motherhood, and female body in patriarchal Korean society deeply grounded in Confucianism. The aftermath of the disappearance is multi - directionally narrated by the novelist daughter, businessman son, elderly husband, and lastly, the mother herself. This paper explores how each family member in mourning copes with grief and loss and comes to remember a silenced story of the mother- woman in terms of a feminist curiosity. Ultimately, with the unique technique of the second- person narrative, Shin's sentimental but thought- provoking novel makes it possible for not only Korean but also international readers to recognize the universal invisibility of women in various patriarchal cultures and further pay attention to unheard female voices for the transformation of women's life in a critically self-reflective way.