전쟁과 여성: 『호랑이 여전사』에 나타난 여성전사의 이미지 (War and Femininity: Representation of “warrior woman” in Tiger Woman)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국아메리카학회
· 수록지 정보 : 미국학 논집 / 47권 / 3호 / 5 ~ 28페이지
· 저자명 : 권석우

초록

It is very curious that there has never been critical and scholarly reception for Tiger Woman (2009), John Huffman’s Next Generation Indie Book Awards winning novel. Whereas the absence of critical response for Daniel Lang’s Casualties of War (1969) can be understood because the description of My Lai massacre has been a kind of taboo in the Vietnamese War Literary Studies in America, the scholarly indifference and negligence of Tiger Woman seems surprising in that the adoption of sensational themes of a sensuous warrior woman and her bloody massacre of American soldiers can be used as a counter-attack to offset the image of murderously colonial America. The fact that the most powerful and strong American marines were killed by one fragile Vietnamese woman, however, may have induced scholarly inattention for a different reason. Their defeat is two-fold: they were defeated by both primitive Vietnamese people and “woman.” Racism and misogyny are the reasons why this novel is not being discussed. The notion of a “Vietnamese” “woman warrior” is a nonsense for American scholars not only because she is a Vietnamese but because she is a woman warrior, the concept of which is an oxymoron trespassing the boundary of exclusively masculine war.
In a way, Tran Thi Cai, the invincible female protagonist of this novel, is an emblematic person who recalls American defeat in that she represents for feminine but steadfastly defiant Vietnam itself. Through the self-censorship of the author who is an American, Cai is, at first, portrayed as differently as “psychopath,” “bitchy animal,” “evil,” “she-devil,” and even “blood-sucking vampire.” Cai, an ignomious “dragon lady” who “unnerved”(187) the manliness of American marines is devolved into a monster and called into an ideological process of “the taming of the shrew.” However, the author who betrays his own censorship despite himself shows that Cai’s repeatedly sadistic and psychopathic actions of massacring are not ungrounded while narrating the fact that her monstrosity is a reactive result of the repeated rape and violence done to her and her people by French and American soldiers. Like that of an ancient goddess of destruction and war, the concept of which Western culture has discarded for various reasons, her chillingly potent combat action is not to be controlled and erased, and thus she has emerged herself as a “new” warrior woman against American empire. With her hysterical silence and willing madness, she prevails over American marine corps and haunts American mind.

영어초록

It is very curious that there has never been critical and scholarly reception for Tiger Woman (2009), John Huffman’s Next Generation Indie Book Awards winning novel. Whereas the absence of critical response for Daniel Lang’s Casualties of War (1969) can be understood because the description of My Lai massacre has been a kind of taboo in the Vietnamese War Literary Studies in America, the scholarly indifference and negligence of Tiger Woman seems surprising in that the adoption of sensational themes of a sensuous warrior woman and her bloody massacre of American soldiers can be used as a counter-attack to offset the image of murderously colonial America. The fact that the most powerful and strong American marines were killed by one fragile Vietnamese woman, however, may have induced scholarly inattention for a different reason. Their defeat is two-fold: they were defeated by both primitive Vietnamese people and “woman.” Racism and misogyny are the reasons why this novel is not being discussed. The notion of a “Vietnamese” “woman warrior” is a nonsense for American scholars not only because she is a Vietnamese but because she is a woman warrior, the concept of which is an oxymoron trespassing the boundary of exclusively masculine war.
In a way, Tran Thi Cai, the invincible female protagonist of this novel, is an emblematic person who recalls American defeat in that she represents for feminine but steadfastly defiant Vietnam itself. Through the self-censorship of the author who is an American, Cai is, at first, portrayed as differently as “psychopath,” “bitchy animal,” “evil,” “she-devil,” and even “blood-sucking vampire.” Cai, an ignomious “dragon lady” who “unnerved”(187) the manliness of American marines is devolved into a monster and called into an ideological process of “the taming of the shrew.” However, the author who betrays his own censorship despite himself shows that Cai’s repeatedly sadistic and psychopathic actions of massacring are not ungrounded while narrating the fact that her monstrosity is a reactive result of the repeated rape and violence done to her and her people by French and American soldiers. Like that of an ancient goddess of destruction and war, the concept of which Western culture has discarded for various reasons, her chillingly potent combat action is not to be controlled and erased, and thus she has emerged herself as a “new” warrior woman against American empire. With her hysterical silence and willing madness, she prevails over American marine corps and haunts American mind.

참고자료

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