Fictional biography and the reconstruction of gendered identities in Liza Dalby’s the Tale of Murasaki, Ruthanne Lum Mccunn’s Thousand Pieces of Gold and Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the reconstruction of gendered identity in three fictional biographies: The Tale of Murasaki (2000) by Liza Dalby (1950-), Thousand Pieces of Gold (1983) by Ruthanne Lum McCunn (1946-), and Comfort Woman (1997) by Nora Okja Keller (1965-) through Roland Barthes’s Five Codes of Narrative and Gerard Genette’s Narratology in a Structuralist approach. It argues that, through their fictive elements and narrative techniques, the three fictional biographies written by women writers reflect on the experiences exclusive to women, illustrate women’s struggle for liberation in their society and culture, and ultimately reconstruct the gendered identities of their female protagonists. My analysis of The Tale of Murasaki explores how the fictional biography assumes a pseudo-autobiographic form as the own writing of the protagonist, who is a writer, to reminisce on her lived life and illustrate the theme of female literary inheritance, construction of gendered identities, and female spiritual maturation. My reading of Thousand Pieces of Gold suggests that the fictional biography employs a straightforward third-person narrative to reflect on its illiterate protagonist’s cross-cultural insights on life as she reconstructs her new identity in her new surrounding. It also includes additional characters to represent the cross-cultural beliefs and values she is exposed to. My study of Comfort Woman illustrates that the fictional biography employs surrealistic narrative techniques to reflect on its dead protagonist’s traumatized experiences as a military prostitute and the reclaiming of her identity through female bonding and solidarity.