New Woman, Romance, and Railroads: The Paradox of Colonial Modernity

Abstract

This article sees Korea’s colonial modernity as a set of paradoxes and provides a reading of it through the most symptomatic aspects of such modernity—the New Woman, ideals of romance, hypermasculinity of the colonial subject, and railroads. I examine texts by and about colonial intellectuals who were at the forefront of cultural and literary experience and production. My discussion shows that this literature reveals colonial Korea as an arena in which the old and the new intermingle and coexist, leading to new conceptions and practices of family and marriage. The New Woman and her male counterpart become recognizable cultural personae and compete against each other for the limited access to modernity especially through education and travel, the two major modes of gaining exposure to the changing world and its values. The New Woman becomes the human fallout of such competition, as Korea’s anti-colonial nationalism, a very much male-identified thought, provides an excuse to ignore women’s causes, even though they are intertwined with the causes of national sovereignty. Ultimately, what results is a split loyalty and double-identification among Korea’s colonial intellectuals, who fail to create a viable alternative to the Old that is dead and the New that is yet unborn.