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영어

It is my firm belief that in many cases literature has common consciousness beyond all different circumstances. Along with the reconsideration of the literary cannon and the rise of global perspectives in literary studies, the current trend in comparative literature has come to embrace a greater variety of literature beyond the barrier of East and west. American author, Edith Wharton (1862-1937) and Korean author, Kyung ae Kang (1907-1943) share something in common many aspects, especially in the creed for women disregard of race, milieu and time. Both of them suffered from the orphancy in their childhood and severe depression in their marriage lives, which gave them strong energy to read and write, that is to indulge themselves in the world of letters. They had not been adequately evaluated until 1970s owing to the prejudice and preconception of the scholars. However since 1970s, they have been praised as good authors with clear and lucid writing style, gift for characterization and plot structure. Both authors' most consistent concern was the plight of women in various situations; in Wharton's world, frequently upper class women, brilliant, sensitive, honorable, but largely powerless under male-dominated society, and in Kang's world, lower class women such as prostitutes, factory workers, who, despite their strong will of life fail to survive under the Confucian patriarchal society and Japanese colonialism. In most cases, the endings of these two writers' novels are tragic in the sense of the psychological and sociological realism. But the women characters in their novels represent self consciousness in the development of their freedom, responsibility, challenge, love, creative power and understanding for other people. I believe that Edith Wharton and Kyungae Kang explored the aspirations and deprivations of women in a male-dominated society and made a basis for women literature against the men-centered literature in the early era of modern American and Korean literature. Edith Wharton, American author and Kynug Ae Kang, Korean author are worth calling "prominent writers" who have finally achieved the position that has always been available to their male counterparts. And their continual searches for "Who Am I?" in their works show that a fulfilled life for a woman was very hard in the culture of their worlds.