Youlim KIM

10.18399/acta.2026.29.1.002

family ideology  2000s Korean literature  Kong Chiyŏng  Kong Sŏnok  Chŏng Ihyŏn  Korean chick-lit  Gender

This article examines the way in which Korean literary works from the 2000s represent women who deviate from the normative family structure, and argues that these representations signal the potential of 2000s Korean literature to serve as a bridge to the feminist literary turn of the 2010s. Through an analysis of Talk’omhan na ŭi tosi (My sweet city, 2006), Chŭlgŏun na ŭi chip (Home sweet home, 2007), and Pyŏl i ch’ongch’ong han ŏndŏk (A starry hill, 2007), this article explores how the female characters deal with the family norms and gendered roles prescribed for them. In doing this, it identifies a progression from frustration, through realization (disillusionment), to the crossing of normative boundaries. Although the characters attempt to resist family norms and depart from normative family ideology, they also exhibit constant hesitations to fully transgress the norms, resulting in a process of negotiation of these norms. I argue that such tensions reveal how literature in the 2000s paved the way for subsequent literary discourse on gender and family in the 2010s, a time when feminist and other marginalized voices began to make themselves heard.