Soo-im Kim and Female Sexuality in the Construction of National Identity: Re-inviting the Female Communist Spy into the Nation

Abstract

The representation of Soo-im Kim, a famous communist spy in South Korea, has varied from femme fatale to a victim of ideological standoff between North and South Korea. However, there are few studies which deal with the gender issues concerning the change in representations of Soo-im Kim. This paper compares the literary work The Spy Who Confessed and Soo-im Kim (1982) with the more recent novel Love Shot Her (2002), to discuss the development of representations of her and its limit from the perspective of feminism.

First, the South Korean stigmatization of Soo-im Kim as a communist spy stemmed from the necessity of ananticommunist national identity in the 1980s, and the recent work discloses the nation's intentional stigmatization of Kim. In the process of stigmatizing, The Spy Who Confessed and Soo-im Kim describes Soo-im Kim as a representative victim of communist coax to convert. However, portraying her as the symbolic victim conceals the exclusion of female spies from the nation in the process of building its identity. In contrast, Love Shot Her restores Soo-im Kim's voice which protests that the nation sacrificed her for its political interest.

Further, the paper will also identify the male-centrism combined with the anticommunist national identity in both texts. The Spy Who Confessed and Soo-im Kim emphasizes Soo-im Kim's westernization and deviant sexuality, which are New Woman's characteristics. The execution of Soo-im Kim evinces South Korean men's fear of New Woman and the colonized inferiority complex towards America, which results in policing female sexuality to strengthen traditional South Korean patriarchy. This policing located sexually liberal women in the periphery. On the contrary, Love Shot Her approaches Soo-im Kim from a different angle in order to include her in South Korean society; it highlights the emotional side of her love and the coexistence between her western and Korean aspects.

However, Love Shot Her reiterates patriarchal gender roles. The intention of this work to reassess Soo-im Kim unexpectedly accentuates her virtues which her contemporary society enforced such as childlike innocence. While the author's strategy seems reasonable given that she is Soo-im Kim's peer, it can seem contentious in readers' eyes after 2002, when feminist movements rose in prominence.