By Sheila Suk Olsen

Presentation Outline
Brief summarization of analytical aspect
Thesis asserted
Explanation of content/background
Summarize/wrap-up/questions http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Thesis
 “I plan to show how Keller connected her protagonists: a former comfort woman and her daughter by providing them with a voice against the atrocities towards women traditionally apparent in Asian cultures and during the Pacific War. Their display of strength came from exercising their voice.” www.themegallery.com
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Background
 :How are atrocities discovered?
 Historical Account
• 1932 first comfort station* established by
Japanese Imperial Army in China
– 1937 Nanjing (Nanking) Massacre
• 1931-1945 estimated over 200,000** women from various countries in Asia forced into sexual servitude (Novel begins in early 1940’s in Korea
[Before the separation of N. and S., ending in early 1990’s in Hawaii, USA, this was near the time Keller wrote her first novel.)
 Witness/Word of Mouth
• 1993 @ human rights symposium heard testimony from an actual comfort women http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Issues

Characters
Grandmother
Mother as Soon Hyo
Mother as Akiko
Daughter Beccah
March 1919
Not Born Yet
Late 1930’s-Early
1940’s
Not Born Yet
Early 1950
College Student/Japan
Colonizes Korea
Arranged
Marriage/Birth to Soon
Hyo/Dies While
Sleeping
Not Born Yet
Not Born Yet
Youngest of 4
Daughters/Dowry into
Servitude
Silenced by
JIA/Comfort
Woman/Escaped to
US Missionaries
Deceased
Spirit Deceased
Gives Birth/Marries
US Missionary/Moves to USA (FL/HI)
Only Child Born in
Korea/Raised in USA http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Relationship Cycle
Circle of Life
Birth
Death
Child
Birth
Motherdaughter
Marriage
Puberty http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Character Quotes
Grandmother
“Marriage is not about love but about duty.
About having sons.
Abuot keeping the family name,” lectured by new inlaws.(CW, 180)
Soon Hyo said of her mother, “My Mother never heard her name again.”(CW, 180 )
Mother
“When I became pregnant, I could not help worrying about what my baby would look like…Korean or
Other. Me or not me.
Now, as I look at my
Bek-hap, my White
Lily, I do not know how I could have doubted her perfection.” (CW, 154)
Daughter
“When I was a child, it did not occur to me that my mother had a life before me.” (CW, 26)
“I wanted to help my mother, shield her from the children’s sharptoothed barbs…and yet I didn’t want to. Because for the first time, as
I…listened…(as they) using their tongues to mangle what she said into what they heard…and I was ashamed.” (CW, 88) http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Secomdary Sources Quotes
Jodi Kim
Associate
Professor of
Ethnic Studies at the University of California at
Berkley
Research and teaching critical and race studies, postcolonial theory.
Aniko Varga
Graduate student from the University of Chicago with a major in
History.
Interest in
History, Social
Sciences,
Gender
Studies.
Schultermandl
Research professor at the
University of
Austria in the
Department of
American
Studies.
Interests are in
Multi-Ethnic
American
Studies and
Critical
Multiculturalism.
http://sheilaolsen.weebly.com/
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Comfort Women in S. Korea Today