Wk.8: Gender Roles

  As a whole, I think that there are a lot of instances where gender plays a big role in how some of the characters see each other as well as how they are treated and expected to act. It seems, from this reading this novel so far, that in the Korean and probably even, for the most part, the Japanese cultures, women are seen as lower than men and thus should always follow what the men in their lives tell them to do.

    For instance, there is a scene in chapter 2 book 2 on page 158, where Sunja has to particularly beg Yoseb for permission to get a job. With Isak in jail, the family would need more money to support itself, but because of traditional gender roles, it was often seen as improper, shameful, and degrading for a woman to do this. But, it seems that, often times, the women in the novel are forced to work outside of traditional domestic roles in order to just be able to sustain their family and keep them from dying. Time and time again it seems that the novel is trying to tell us that, not only was it incredibly hard for a family to just earn enough money to survive, but those women who have gotten ahead and financially provided for their family were the ones who, more or less, survived. 

    Although, I am not entirely sure at this moment what exactly Lee is trying to tell her audience as she creates female characters that work and get jobs outside their home. In part I think these portrayals are supposed to showcase just a forced progression that often mimics that of western societies where the women, at least during this time, could work outside the homes without nearly as much criticism. But, besides this small piece, I am not quite sure the overall point of it at this moment.