농촌여성 생애담의 주제와 생애인식 양상

A Study on Rural Women's Life Stories ; the themes and the women's perception of their own lives

With a view to underscoring the popular experiences and the everyday life history, this research has been attempted to identify how the rural women have lived and how they are perceiving their life. The research subjects were chosen from several rural villages of a similar scale, ranging from 50's w 90's of age. The life story data explored here were based both internally on their experiences of marrying, farming, housekeeping and nursing, and externally on those of the Japanese colonism and the Korean War which they shared. As the research was performed in an 'on-the-spot' way to a group of about 40 cases, its objectivity, typicalness, and narrativity could be assured, with the consideration of the situation and individual differences of the informants. The data were collected and analyzed in three views: (l)what experience do the subjects remember as the most significant among others? (2)how are they expressing their experiences and perceiving them? (3)how do they evaluate their own life? As a result, it has been observed that their experience was centered around their married life, especially about the married life and its hardship, such as the tense relationship with husband's family members(mainly female), the lack of food and sleep, and intolerable labors. Since their action radius was domestic works, it was natural that their life histories concentrated on the experiences and difficulties out of their everyday life. They have relatively less interest in their husbands and outside affairs, which happened to increase the grim realities of life. It has been also observed, aside from the typical realistic description of the theme, that there were various levels in their perception and evaluation on their painful experiences. Their husbands were perceived as "a non-existing exsitence" in the hardships of the reality, hence their minds and bodies arc ever toward their maiden home. The psychological orientedness sometimes give them courage to make an attempt to nm away from the house. However, they are all tied down to the married life whether unwillingly or not, never help enduring those sufferings that were waiting for them. In spite of the socio-cultural impact and conflict from the outside world now quite different from that they had been lived in, their life story was told not in a sad way only; they seemed to be possessed with a kind of pride which they derived from the difficulties and sufferings that they had finally succeeded to overcome. Their life, as quoted from the majority, was "It cannot be told even in so many a day," or "It can be written into a novel in many a volume of books." "…Cannot be cold to the end, ‥cannot be cold to the end……" was their unison comment. However, this narrative, autobiographical repetition is "the true language of women" that came from the pride that they ha<l finally succeeded to overcome their difficulties.