Inherited Wounds. Gendered Memory and Historical Trauma in Han Kang’s Human Acts (2016) and We Do Not Part (2025)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.2785-3233/25793Keywords:
Han Kang, Postmemory, Gendered Trauma, Gwangju Uprising, Jeju 4.3 MassacreAbstract
This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of traumatic memories in South Korea through a comparative analysis of Han Kang’s Human Acts (Sonyeoni onda 2016) and We Do Not Part (Jakbyeolhaji anneunda 2025). Framing the Gwangju Uprising (1980) and the Jeju 4.3 Massacre (1948) as “inherited wounds,” this study uses Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory” and feminist trauma theory to explore how historical pain is inscribed upon the female body and psyche. While traditional historiography often focuses on the event itself, Han Kang’s narrative architecture shifts the gaze to the “afterlife” of violence – how it is mediated, repressed, and ultimately resurfaces in the lives of survivors and their descendants. By analyzing the polyphonic witnessing in Human Acts and the spectral, embodied testimony in We Do Not Part, this paper argues that Han Kang constructs a specific form of gendered memory. In this framework, women act not merely as passive mourners, but as ethical agents who transform the open wounds of history into a political practice of “grievability,” resisting the state’s erasure of the dead.
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