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Induk's Role in "Mother Tongue"
By Jie Won Im
"Mother Tongue," a short story by Nora Cobb Keller, describes
how a Korean comfort girl escapes to heal her bruised soul, after
experiencing sex slavery at a Japanese camp. A murdered comfort
woman named Induk appears in the story. Though she looks like a
minor character, Induk is not merely a sacrifice of the Japanese
soldiers, but she also makes a significant impact on the main character.
Induk's physical death inspired Akiko's spiritual rebirth and recoveryafter
her two major painful spiritual deaths.
Young Akiko dies two spiritual deaths inflicted by her sister and
Japanese soldiers. Her sister, being her only protection after their
parents' deaths, gives Akiko up for her own good. As a little girl,
Akiko longs to be loved. She pretends to send "secret signals"
(320) when she and her mother wash clothes at the river bank. Also,
she is the only one to watch her mother on the death bed. Though
Akiko dreams about a special relationship with her mother, her death
prevents Akiko from "living a full life" (319) of happiness.
Akiko cries on the day of her sale, but her sister is callous. She
even mentions to the Japanese soldiers that her sister would become
pretty in the future, meaning she is aware of the pain Akiko is
to suffer. Since her sister is unloving, the only love Akiko cherishes
is the short time with her mother. This
love remains in her heart as the paragon of pure love, since she
mentions her mother every time she thinks about love. The second
spiritual death at the Japanese camp has caused her great pains
both physically and mentally. Akiko believes that she is "murdered"
(318) at the camp, which shows that spiritual death is as serious
as physical death to her. As her body and spirit become bruised,
little by little mentally dead Akiko is tempted to commit suicide.
Because of such abandonment from her family and society, Akiko loses
her spirit, or more precisely, her
will to live.
Akiko, who receives Induk's former title, realizes the necessity
of a spiritual rebirth
through Induk's passionate belief of familial love. Induk is killed
by the Japanese soldiers for crying out the cruelties Japanese were
causing the Korean people. "I had a family like you do. I am
a daughter," (322) shouts Induk. Akiko later realizes that
Induk wasn't going crazy then but was becoming the exact opposite.
Induk doesn't die a spiritual death as herself though she dies a
gruesome physical death. She preserved her human sovereignity by
dying a voluntary death. Induk discards her name by dying and Akiko
wants to do the same, since the Japanese name
is a symbol of her agony at the camp. Akiko must get rid of this
name to return to her true self again, and Induk's example has motivated
her to take action. By receiving Induk's Japanese name, unconsciously
Induk's powerful spirit is also devolved on Akiko and makes Akiko
also long for a soul. Akiko wants to recover her spirit but not
by dying like Induk. She wants to "carry [her] body to where
it might find [her] spirit again" (318). She feels that she
can heal herself by the nostalgic love. Therefore, she decides to
preserve her life by refusing the rat poison for abortion. Though
she was spiritually abject, her "body moved on" (318)
in hopes of
regaining her true self by remebering the happy times she had with
her mother. As she escapes from the camp, she imagines hearing her
mother washing clothes at the river bank and instinctively carries
her body to the Yalu, her hometown, the place of perfect love. Induk's
actions made Akiko understand that she also had a chance of recovery.
Akiko gradually recovers her spirit through her new family, which
Induk so dearly wanted at the moment of her death. Akiko has always
been attached to the idea of motherly love and Induk's proclamation
causes her to retrieve what she lost. Because the only love Akiko
knows is the love between mother and daughter, she wants to fulfill
the task of a mother. This is why the only "concrete"
(323) relationship in life for Akiko is that of the mother and child.
She is even cautious against her husband when it comes to loving
their daughter. Not only spiritually, but also physically her daughter
is the symbol of her recovery of the "battered" (318)
body. The baby has been born from Akiko's body that was "impossible
to properly heal" (318). Because she has a baby, she is now
able to live a normal life like any other family and try to forget
her tragedy. Since her daughter is the reason for her life and the
recovery of spirit and body, she is obsessed about her. Induk's
intriguing words about family has pulled Akiko through hardship
and aided in reaching her goal of recovery through her baby.
Though Induk seems to be a minor character, her sanity stimulates
Akiko to also regain her own. By understanding Induk, Akiko is motivated
to escape the camp to regain her lost spirit. Her lost spirit contains
her long lost love of her mother, the only love she knows and cherishes.
Induk's powerful words about family stirs Akiko's mind to heal herself,
which she finally accomplishes through her daughter.
Mother Tongue: Which Tongue to Choose?
By J.W. Chung
Language may take on many different shapes, but these must be carefully
chosen by function, for it defines the world we live in. Akiko tells
the story of her life as a woman in Korea under Japanese rule in
Nora Keller's short story "Mother-Tongue." To Akiko, language
is not just a means of communication. Language and speech determine
the world she lives in and her relationship with it.
Language symbolizes power, as it has the ability to command and
dominate. Totally conquered by the Japanese soldiers, Akiko is voiceless
when she is finally saved by the missionaries. The complete power
exercised on her by the Japanese soldiers continues to hold her
in a firm grasp even then, so that if "asked, [would make her]
respond to 'close mouth' and 'open legs'" (319). This powerful
tool is also used to rebel as well as to rule. Induk, Akiko's predecessor
at the camp, reclaims her life and identity by talking, shouting,
blaring out loud to the soldiers who she was. Though this event
consequently condemned young Akiko to her "death," it
is not resented by Akiko, but viewed positively as a bold plan of
escape on Induk's part.
But language can also be a source of comfort and communion. Language
is not necessarily of the verbal type, and while oral language may
represent the power relationships, body language takes on a different
role. Though they were silenced in the camp, Akiko and the other
women in the camp learned to communicate with each other in a different
unspoken language of "eye movements, body posture, tilts of
the head..." (319). Akiko experiences this alternate use of
language as she serves as a center for this secret communication,
relaying messages as she takes care of the women.
Language morphs into a different shape from normal speech when
it serves this function of care and comfort. Along with its more
primal bodily expression, it accompanies tender sentiment. It becomes
Akiko's soothing stroke on her dying mother's forehead. It becomes
Akiko's attentive care over her daughter, "[her] breast, new
diapers, a kiss, [her daughter's] toy" (323). Motherland and
mother-tongue seem to be lost for Akiko, and also her daughter,
but "the language [she knows] is true" (323), is never
lost at all.
Despite Akiko's husband's belief that language is unchangeable,
"concrete" (323), language and the world it represents
can and should be changed to the "true" type. Despite
the rhetoric of the Japanese doctor that "pinned [Akiko] to
earth with...his words" (323), Akiko was able to escape the
camp that night. And contrary to his diagnosis, she is able to give
birth to a baby daughter 20 years later. And this baby will not
be tormented by language like "tweggi" (318), but will
be loved and cherished by her mother and father. The language that
we are "led [to], in the end," (324) is of the kind that
carries feelings, the "mother-tongue."
"By Then I Had No Voice"
By Erica Rim
"Mother Tongue" is a well-written short story by Nora
Cobb Keller. Keller is a Korean-American woman who chooses a comfort
woman as the main character in the fiction. The author describes
the comfort woman's, Akiko, life in precise details. Even though
this short story is a fiction, Keller sets up the background based
on the true story of comfort women. Keller writes "Mother Tongue"
to tell and
to show people in the world truth, the truth of the Korea and Janpan
history. It is especially interesting about Akiko's lost voice.
Keller does not explain about Akiko's lost voice particularly which
make readers confuse about the story whether she really loses her
voice or Akiko is imagining that she loses it or she just doesn't
speak because she doesn't know any English. Why does Akiko have
no voice? Akiko loses her voice by unwanted and hopeless sex.
Akiko is just ordinary as others; it is not an accident or a genetic
inheritance from her family that she cannot speak. Akiko is the
youngest daughter from a Korean traditional family. Her father is
a cow trader, a stubborn but honest, hard-working, and healthy man.
Her mother and older sisters are women who responsibly takes care
of the
housework. Keller brings up Akiko and her mothers good and lovely
memories, going to the Yalu and washing clothes together. In her
childhood, Akiko is just same a other girls who hp their mother.
She is happy until her sister sells Akiko to Japanese.
First of all, Nora places several stages of Akiko's life, mixing
them into a short story. She begins the tale with a foreshadowing
sentence. "THE BABY I COULD keep already dead"(322). This
powerful and mysterious statement attracts readers to get into the
story. Someone is dead. In the following story, Akiko is sent to
the camp to serve Japanese soldiers. Since Akiko is too young, she
starts the work with helping other comfort women, keeping their
clothes and beds clean, and serving their meals. It is almost same
duty as before at her home. Akiko's life is altering gradually to
the worst. Now is the time for Akiko to serve men. Every night
comfort women have lined up men outside of the door, waiting for
having sex with those young girls. They can get killed by resisting
those men. How? "They brought her back skewered from her virginal
to her mouth, like a pig ready for roasting. A lesson, they told
the rest of us, meaning us into silence (322)". Akiko is having
unexpected sex in other words raping with those Japanese men unstoppably.
"Even though I had not yet had my first bleeding, I was auctioned
off to the highest bidder. After it was a free-for-all and I thought
I would never stop bleeding (322)". It is enough to be dreadful.
A little girl is raped by those crucial men, but she cannot do anything
about it. It is new to her, and Akiko has to accept her unbelievable
situation.
Japanese soldiers give her a real agony by raping, and those risky
actions also give her more than enough stress to lose her voice.
Akiko is having a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People
get this disease from previous shocking experiences. More than 50
percent of women have PTSD because of sexual harassment. Akiko is
just one of them. She lives with her family blissfully. One day,
dramatically she starts her disgusting life at the recreation camp
with Japanese men and
poor women. Akiko loses her voice by unwanted and hopeless sexes.
Not old she loses her voice, but also she loses her pure childhood.
She loses her name, and she gains dead woman's name and her cloth.
At the camp, she starts a wicked life. "Mother Tongue"
shows us Akiko's heat, a burning heart with hatred and loathing.
It is also thankful to God that she has only PTSD, because she can
get her hearing back by treatments. She meets her husband who is
a minister, and she begins a new life with her only daughter. Time
passes by
her, and she can hear. However, the history never changes, as she
never stops bleeding.
Escaping From Another Prison
By Jung Ockjae
Nora Cobb Keller, a female Korean American writer, wrote the short
story, Mother Tongue , which deals with a Korean ex-comfort woman's
escaping from the comfort station in the Japanese army during World
War II. After Akiko escapes from the station, she meet, and marries
a Christian missionary. In addition, she bears a baby, but she feels
that her husband bothers her new baby by teaching the four or five
languages he knows. Through his teaching the baby many languages,Akiko
remembers her life as a comfort woman . That is to say, Akiko feels
that she suffers from prison like oppressions toward her, so she
takes much care of her baby.
First, Japanese Army seems like a physical prison to Akiko 41.
She is taken into this prison like a cow as her sister's dowry,
because her sister didn't have much money (320). When she is forced
to be within the Japanese comfort station, she can hear Induk's
creaking voice clearly. For example, Induk shouts, I am Korea, I
am a woman, I am alive (322). The voice is like a prison filled
with physical agony for Akiko. During Akiko's Japanese camp life,
Akiko becomes pregnant and must abort her baby. During the abortion,
the doctor often laughs, and even disregards Akiko's personality.
This situation is equal to another prison to Akiko 41 because she
cannot
act freely, use her mother tongue Korean, and must suffer from physical
and mental agony.
In addition, to be forbidden to speak anything must be another
prison-like situation for Akiko. Akiko 41 is forbidden to speak
any words to other comport women by Japanese military officers because
the officers treat the comport women as beasts. In addition to this,
when the missionaries find her, because she wears the dress attached
her name Akiko. Because of it, nobody talks to her by Korean
directly, the missionaries talk to her with many other languages,
so she says, They asked me in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, English
(319). At least, Chinese, English, and Japanese are foreign language
to Akiko, so these can be another oppressions toward her. Furthermore,
she suffers from comport woman life, so naturally decides to speak
only in the language of animals (319). Speaking no words by her
own voice is another prison like situation to her.
Last, Akiko's husband and her baby is another prison to Akiko.
Because Akiko's husband is different from Akiko's nationality, they
cannot communicate with well each other. Because her husband teaches
her baby in four languages, Akiko worries that the different sounds
for the same object will confuse her (323). From the point of Akiko's
experience with the Japanese army learning English, four or five
languages to her baby is another oppression. In addition, when her
baby hears many foreign languages, Akiko is reminded of ex-comfort
woman life because she can listen to only foreign language in the
Japanese army during World War II, but she cannot speak her mother
tongue. Like this, her baby now can hear only foreign languages,
but cannot speak any languages, so this situation to her baby is
prison-like where she cannot speak freely. Additionally, because
Akiko cannot communicate with not only her husband but also her
baby, Akiko's husband and her baby is another prison to Akiko.
The Japanese army is like a physical prison to Akiko. In addition,
Akiko is prohibited to speak anything by Japanese army, it is also
another prison-like situation. Furthermore, her husband even makes
Akiko's situation worse. Akiko suffers from comfort woman life severely,
so she must escape from her another prison. At the last scene, although
she seems to have died of much bleeding because of abortion, she
escapes from the comfort station. However, prison-like situation
is for her husband to teach her baby four or five language. Through
this, she thinks that her baby is oppressed by four or five foreign
languages, and reminds that she cannot any language during comfort
woman life.
The Realistic Fiction ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
By Veronica
Nora Cobb Keller¡¯s ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
is the story of Akiko, who is a comfort woman when Korea was a colony
settlement of Japan. Akiko¡¯s oldest sister sells Akiko
to Japanese recreation camp because of her dowry. Then Akiko is
only twelve years old, and she becomes a comfort woman. Akiko feels
more dead than alive because she loses her normal life, youth, and
her identity. The author writes Akiko¡¯s bitter experiences
in Japanese military camp and her inner world vividly. Though ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
is a fiction, Keller uses several techniques so that the readers
can consider it as a realistic story. It is because she intends
more people to pay attention to problem of comfort women through
her fiction.
Keller realistically points out Akiko¡¯s situation.
That is, ¡°Mother-Tongue¡± is based on historical
fact, the World War ¥±. The author says that Akiko¡¯s
sister sells Akiko for a comfort woman. Practically, Japanese military
made force Korean young girls to be comfort women by kidnapping,
abduction, and traffic in human beings. In addition, Keller describes
vividly how brutal Japanese treat at comfort women. In ¡°Mother-Tongue,¡±
Japanese soldiers murder Induk by cruel and atrocious method and
they killed Akiko¡¯s unborn baby. During the war, Japanese
used Korean comfort woman like a trifle or plaything. They raped,
tortured, assaulted, and teased comfort woman. The author indicates
these actual facts in ¡°Mother-Tongue,¡±
so the readers consider it as a documentary literature or a realistic
story.
Keller describes Akiko¡¯s inner condition and heart
minutely. She offers the readers how interpret the character¡¯s
thought and feeling. ¡°The corpse the soldiers brought
back from the woods wasn¡¯t Induk. It was Akiko; it was
me¡± (322). The readers know the way Akiko thinks of
herself and Induk by Keller¡¯s text. In other words,
the part that the readers have to analyze for themselves decreases
in this fiction. The readers take the story of the personage at
the author¡¯s word for it. The distance between the readers
and Akiko shortens, so the readers identify themselves with Akiko.
Consequently, the readers think ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
is objective, and believe it factual story.
In addition to the detailed and realistic description of the character¡¯s
circumstance and inner condition, Keller uses the first person point
of view in order that a reader may be on intimate terms with the
character in the fiction. A first-person novel is the story which
the narrator ¡°I¡± appears on. That is to
say, it is an ¡°I¡± story. Keller makes an
imaginary person and the person is a storyteller and the storyteller
is a heroine, Akiko. That the teller of a story is same with the
main character of that story is very interesting. It is because
it makes the readers accept the story as a kind of report on a character.
Keller writes Akiko¡¯s life from childhood to adulthood.
She mentions about Akiko¡¯s parents, husband, and child
in Akiko¡¯s voice. The fiction ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
looks as if autobiography of Akiko. In brief, the writer of ¡°Mother-Tongue¡±
uses the first person point of view to make the readers consider
the fiction as an actual story and the heroine Akiko as a real person.
Actually, Japanese military left scars in many comfort women¡¯s
body and soul by inhuman treatment during the war. Keller indicates
this historical event acutely in her fiction ¡°Mother-Tongue.¡±
She depicts that event lively and realistically by creating a made-up
person, Akiko. In other words, Keller expresses a comfort woman¡¯s
life, pain, and grief through the Akiko¡¯s voice. Therefore,
the readers are susceptible to take the story historical recording.
Keller discloses the comfort women problem during the World War
¥± by granting the reality and the actuality to her fiction
¡°Mother-Tongue.¡±
Akiko’s Terrible Memories of Japanese camps
By Min Hur
In short story, “Mother Tongue”, Akiko, one of the
survivors who was served as “comfort women” during world
war II tells her story about terrible sexual slavery in Japanese
military camps and her another life after escaping from the camps.
However, she could not get out of the terrible memories of the camps.
It means how terrible tragedy happened and Japanese soldiers treat
“comfort women”.
Akiko said she was already dead. In this point, it means she was
destroyed not only her body also her mind by Japanese soldiers.
Her insides were too injured to have a baby. While she got an abortion,
Camp doctor treated her like rats or other animals and he said she
would never have a living child, but she could have a little one
after escaping the camps. It is too cruel to be forgotten for Akiko
Soldiers tortured comfort women mentally more than physically. Jongun
Ianfu camps treated the women like camp doctor and trained them
only to service their sex for the soldiers. She tried to remember
when she parted from her family. That is the moment she thought
she died. In the camps, Induk who was the camp Akiko before her
was killed because the women shouted and yelled them to stop their
invasion of her country and her body. Akiko thought about Induk
as herself, her family or part of her body. It is not only because
they got the same name, but because they had similar experiences
and feelings like sadness. Akiko’s memories of soldiers and
Induk go with her whole life.
After escaping from the camps, she met missionaries in Phyong Yang
and she married the minister who took her in after the camp. Then
she could have her baby in spite of camp doctor’s saying.
However. It does not seem that she is satisfied with another new
life. She got out of the camps, but her mind is still in there.
Her memories of “terror working” and miserable feelings
still live with her. When her husband who speaks four languages
taught her baby, she worried language dissects her daughter into
pieces. It connected to her memory that Japanese soldiers want the
women to learn the language only what they need to learn. Every
memory of Japanese cruel behaviors influence her life and family.
This story shows her life as a comfort women and her consciousness
which was caused by her terrible memories of camps. As her terrible
memories did not vanish, Akiko’s fearfulness does not disappear
and what happened in the past by Japan cannot be forgotten. Comfort
women’s problems are not only in the past also in the present.
This fiction makes me realize how cruel and mean Japanese behaviors
were during war and women need to speak the truth.
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