The Comparison And Research Of The’disguising’ Motif In Chinese And Korean Ancient Narrative Literature

Both China and Korea have undergone long feudal society and the male gender discrimination system has been existed in both countries during that time. The majority of women have suffered from the discrimination of the patriarchal society for a long time, their lives imprisoned in a small space only for the family. Although, there was gender discrimination and oppression in the society, these things had never perished their dream for liberation, freedom and gender equality, instead, such a strong dream was sublimated to the literature and reflected in a number of Narrative Literature.’Disguising’-it was the most common motif of Narrative Form in Ancient Narrative Literature of China and Korea. It is easy to be found from these literary works of both countries that a woman disguised as a man in order to be a member in the patriarchal society, and her talents have been displayed fully there. Even a woman fought a bloody war and made contributions," Women are no inferior to men" has been displayed properly. Hence, the strong women’s consciousness has been manifested fully.Most of the literature of China and Korea in which woman has been characterized as both brave and wise person were emerged around the18th century, it was Ming and Qing dynasties in China and Joseon dynasty in Korea The18th century was feudal society as well as a patriarchal society in both China and Korea. Whole society had a strong concept of gender discrimination under the influence of deep-rooted Confucian philosophy. The view that men are superior to women such as "Ignorance is women’s virtue" suppressed women in society and every aspect of the family, and they were severely limited in what they are able to do in life. There was a little change in gender discrimination with the generation of the germination of capitalism in China, some progressive and scholars began to against the traditional concept of gender discrimination and propose the requirements for the liberation of women and gender equality. However, Korea has gone through Japanese invasion of Korea and the Manchu Invasion of Korea’at that time, the society began to doubt the ability of male due to the damage caused by the War, besides, ideology has also been stimulated by the introduction of Catholic and other Western civilization. In this way, there were a number of literary works which stood for the women’s consciousness and reflected the female psychology in both countries at that time. From the perspective of the literary background, the motif’Disguising’began to be discovered from a mass of literary works in Wei, Jin and Northern&Southern Dynasties of China and from then on has been developed. In Korea we can find the origin of ’Disguising’in the mythology, it has been started from Bear Woman of "Tan-gun mythology". Although there is no direct relationship between China and Korea in literary works such as’Disguising’motif and female fiction, from the relation of literary motif, China can be seen as the external factors of the Korean literature development.’Disguising’means that women concerned for their own and fully displayed confidence in their own values. These concern and confidence caused women’s consciousness and subversion of the patriarchal. Therefore, first of all the cultural significance of’Disguising’motif is that the society began to face problems of women and their value in turbulent times, women has been led to the center of the family and society. And the modern women’s consciousness has been reflected properly. Secondly, gender discrimination has been refuted by subversion of the patriarchal under the strengthening of the women’s rights, the ideology for gender equality has been expressed accordingly. In addition to this, the cultural significance of’Disguising’motif is that women were also given the opportunity for catharsis by role reversal of men and women in the traditional literature through the imagination.The narrative function of Disguising motif is to subvert status of men and women in the traditional narration, reversing the narrative development process. Disguising transforms well-known women in the traditional society into unique, extraordinary characters by defamiliarization technique. The heroine for the duration of disguising as a man puts up a civil and military heroic outlook, reveals the prejudice against women caused by gender discrimination. There is not a big difference in the image of women of China and Korea at this time, only their actions after returning to the original female identity will show very different morphology. The heroine of Chinese literature back to the original identity has completely lost the courage when disguising as a man and gone back to the spineless woman. The author wants to express the true face of society at that time. But the heroine of the Korean work back to the original identity not only does not lose their original status and honor, and will give full play to the wisdom to occupy a certain position even after returning to families, is no longer a vassal of men. The writer is expressing the willingness that is impossible to achieve in the real world through the creation method of romanticism. The reasons of such different results in these two countries lie in creation methods, national characters and cultural differences.The disguising’motif of Ancient Narrative Literature has important significance in Narrative functions and Cultural significance. The woman can achieve the ideals only by disguising, rehabilitation family prestige and save the nation in imminent danger. It reveals the gender equality that women are never to fall behind man on equal terms and opposed to the traditional gender concept.