“Her Name is…” Short Stories: The Image Presentation of Women Labour in South Korea Society

Abstract

This article aims to reflect the South Korean female characters presented through women labour issues in the South Korea society from “Her Name is…”, 28 short stories by the Korean author, Cho Nam-Joo (조남주). The results revealed that the stories were written from the actual situation in South Korea society through the perspective of Cho Nam-Joo who was the writer and was a part of South Korea society herself. She intended to present the issues of women employees in South Korea society through the main female characters in each story. The issues presented through these short stories consisted of 1) a figure of entering and leaving the labour market of women with such reasons as: the expectation of the rural women, and the distress from economy and society, and the causes of leaving their jobs; 2) a figure of women labour-force depressing issues under the patriarchy culture in South Korea society, forexample, gender discrimination in workplaces, sexual harassment on working women and injustice of judgement in the case of sexual harassment; and 3) a figure of social movement and claim for women labour-force’s equal rights. The author reflected the society through her literature channel, therefore, the major female characters in the series of her short stories were the representatives of women in a South Korea society who were facing depressing issues under the patriarchy culture.