The rapid improvement in the social status of women in Korean society has led to the coexistence of a generation that was stifled by a patriarchal culture and a generation that is no longer so. This article highlights the conflicts between the generations and the need to understand and communicate with women’s inner struggles.
Looking back over the past 100 years, Korean society has undergone many socio-cultural changes, the most prominent of which is the improvement in the social status of Korean women. In the past, Korean society was predominantly male-dominated, and it was common for women to stay out of the workforce and focus solely on housework. It was considered a virtue for women to be devoted to their husbands, parents, and children at home. However, times have changed and the status of women has improved, and modern women have their own careers and are no longer confined to the home. However, this improvement in women’s status did not happen naturally and gradually, but rather rapidly due to rapid democratization and the introduction of Western culture. As a result, our society has seen a generation that was stifled by a patriarchal society coexist with a generation that is no longer so. This is exemplified in Neu-Sook Shin’s novel Please Look After Mother, which depicts an ordinary Korean family. The novel depicts a stereotypical woman who is devoted to her family as a mother, and a new woman as a daughter.
The novel begins with the loss of her mother, a dementia-stricken woman who has come to Seoul from the countryside, on the subway. The book is told in parts from the perspectives of the family members: the father, the eldest son, the eldest daughter, and the younger daughter, each of whom describes the confusion, pain, and regret they experience after losing “Mom,” and the process of learning about her existence. The “mama” in this novel is a typical old Korean woman who married young, never knew her husband’s face, and devoted her life to her children, only to later lose them all and live alone with her husband. In the first half of the book, the children share their thoughts about their lost mother. Her children describe her as a bodhisattva-like figure who, like typical mothers of old, has spent her life devoted to her family without a moment to reflect on herself. On the other hand, in the second half of the book, when Mom talks about her own life, she is portrayed as a woman who, before she was the devoted mother her children portrayed her as, had the same needs and struggles that most women have. In particular, she had to give up love without even knowing it was love, endure her husband’s infidelity, and devote her youth to raising her children. She struggled with many emotions, including feeling lost and confused, but no one in her family knew about it, and she didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.
The reason why this book is loved by so many people is that it allows them to feel a sense of nostalgia, longing, and gratitude for their mothers. When people read this book, they often identify with the grief of children who have lost their mothers, their regret for having done wrong to their mothers, and their gratitude for the love they received from their mothers. But I was more interested in the grief that the children felt than the mother’s, and I was saddened to learn that the mother had spent her entire life repressing herself and living in a whirlwind of unknown emotions. I realized that this struggle was caused by the fact that the culture of our society had changed so quickly, and that the generations of mothers and daughters were so different. The mother’s generation must have had a stark self-doubt when they saw a generation of daughters who were so different from them, who didn’t believe that marrying and raising children was the goal of life, who were free to do what they wanted to do without being tied down to a family, and who were living their lives with dignity and freedom. If the mother’s daughters or daughters-in-law in this novel had lived the same life as her, would this anguish and pain have bothered her so much? If it was 50 years ago, or even further back in time, in the Joseon Dynasty, if her daughters or daughters-in-law lived the same life as she did and it was taken for granted, and if her house was full of children and grandchildren, she might have been happy. But then times changed, and she was left at home alone, feeling abandoned, lonely, and haunted by the idea that she was so different from the young women out there, and what she had lived for.
In fact, a radio program did a study and found that the number one concern of women in their 50s and 70s who have devoted their lives to family is self-existence – the idea that they’ve never been able to find their true selves in the lives they’ve lived, that they’ve lived for someone else and that they’ve never really had a life of their own. And because they don’t have anyone who understands them, they’re often suffering alone, so they don’t have the courage to take back their lives now, and they’re stuck in the past, reminiscing about all the things they’ve had to give up, and the cycle continues. Perhaps this pain and confusion is not unlike what the mom in the novel felt.
While some people may dismiss these as trivial things that anyone can go through in their daily lives, the pain and suffering they experience has a bigger impact than you might think. In fact, my mom in the novel always suffered from unexplained headaches, which caused her great distress. I believe that these headaches stemmed from the worries and anguish that she was experiencing. However, her children never knew the cause of these headaches and would take her to the doctor, treating her headaches as simply a physical ailment. They had never seriously examined her mind, so they never realized that she was harboring these worries and anguish. In the end, my mother’s headache was the decisive factor that caused her to lose her mind on the subway and disappear. This shows that the worries and pain that women are experiencing today are not trivial, and we are completely oblivious to them.
I’ve visited homes for the elderly before, and I’ve met many women who have similar problems to the “mom” in the novel. Many of them have doubts about the days they’ve lived, difficult pasts they’ve had to overcome alone, and feelings of self-doubt about who they are now, but no one is there to listen and comfort them. I felt so sorry for these people, who were unable to find their true selves and were lamenting their deaths. Usually, these elderly people don’t talk about their problems because they don’t want to worry their children or family, and their children and family have no idea that their mother is in such pain. In fact, even in the novel, the children were very supportive of their mothers materially, but they didn’t try to connect with them emotionally. I thought about what could be done to solve this problem of the mom generation. The first thing that came to mind was social support, such as creating a group where the mothers could interact with each other and comfort each other with their problems, or helping the elderly to do something productive by developing hobbies that they are good at, such as flower gardening or singing. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is like giving painkillers to a sick person. I think the real cure is for families to try to understand the mothers’ problems and make them realize that their lives are not in vain.
Our society has progressed so rapidly because of the mothers in so many families, but they had to miss out on so many opportunities in their own lives and give up so many things to support their families and their children. It’s so sad that they left so much behind and gave so much of themselves, only to find themselves in such a sad state of distress and confusion later on. The younger generation now may not know the pain of their moms’ generation because they are not absolutely submissive or devoted to their families. It’s hard to understand the pain because you’re not in pain yourself, but if we make an effort to understand and communicate with the mom generation, it won’t be painful anymore. At the very least, I hope that many people will recognize this and make an effort, so that fewer people will have headaches like the mom in Please Look After Mother.
