"The Comfort Woman"

Paper Summary:

"The Comfort Woman" by Nora Okja Keller is the moving tale of a daughter struggling to understand her mother while coming to grips with her own emotionally unsatisfying life. This paper analyzes major theories of mother-daughter relationships and an absent father throughout the book. The book explores many sides of several feminist theories, including the all-important mother-daughter relationship, which can insinuate itself into every facet of our adult lives. The paper shows how the character, Beccah, must deal with the death of her mother, the absence of a father, and the knowledge that she never really knew her mother at all, which may be the most difficult part of her life to deal with.

From the Paper:

"Another compelling theme in the novel that binds the two women together is their life in Hawaii. They live in "the shacks," the side of Hawaii the tourists do not see, and it is a place reeking of poverty and sadness. Beccah grows up between the white world of her absent father, and the Korean world of her mother, but she is even more torn because she has so little of her father and his culture to bind her to him. Her life is difficult, and she really becomes the "mother" in the relationship early, because her mother is so often off in a trance and unable to take care of herself. Beccah sees the world through two cultures, she does not exactly fit in either one of them, and this is another source of her restlessness and isolation after she leaves home."

More papers on "The Comfort Woman":

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• Argumentative Essay # 57157 : "Japan's "Comfort Women"

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