This thesis explores the way in which Theresa Hak Kyung Cha''s Dictee translates both Korean nationalism and Western-oriented feminism from her diasporic female position by ''diasporic feminine narrative.'' First, the narrative in Dictee is both diasporic and feminine. The fragmented narration inscribes the pain of displacement, deconstructs master narrative of the state, and reveals the fissure of her own utterance as diaspora, and as woman, cracks a male-centered language. Plus, Dictee suggests communicative narrative as feminine one in contrast to logocentric male one. Only with this narrative, she can properly speak up about women who had been suppressed both in Korean nationalism and in Western-oriented feminism.
Secondly, this thesis examines how Dictee rewrites Korean nationalism. In "Clio: History" chapter, Cha reveals that Korea wanted to recover masculinity lost by the Empire and constructed heroic narrative in which a hero vehemently fought against enemies. Resisting the way a man was meant to be the hero, Cha writes about ''female hero'' Yoo Kwan-Sun. However, she realizes that heroic narrative itself is already masculine, so women cannot be properly uttered in it. Thus, in "Calliope: Epic poetry" chapter, she fundamentally changes the way she narrates women. She describes her mother''s experience in Manchuria under Japanese colonization, and tries to communicate her mother''s experience with her own experience. In this way, by feminine narrative, women can exist as women themselves and as specific individuals, not as an image allocated by men. Also in this narration, Korean nationalism is rewritten as two diasporic women''s communication, which is specific and embracing in contrast to the anonymous and exclusive nationalism before.
Moreover, Cha''s Dictee critically raises questions regarding Western-oriented feminism which supposes that the West is more liberal to women than Asia. This holds the belief that Asian women have to transcend their suppressive nationality if they want liberation. However, we already saw that how women can be liberal without discarding their nationality in the "Calliope" chapter. Furthermore, in "Erato: Love poetry" chapter, Cha claims that each culture is not the matter of superiority but that of difference, by describing Theresa of Lisieux, the French woman suppressed by masculine Catholicism, and Cha''s mother''s marriage life, the Korean woman suppressed by Confucianism culture. This indicates that each woman is suppressed by each distinctive culture. Therefore, the two women are connected not in transcendental zone but in different suppressive form of cultures. Women can build up solidarity by resisting the suppression and affirming their subjectivity.
Finally, this thesis claims that Dictee takes a step further to reflect on modernity. Her fragmented and communicative narrative is not fixed but changing in time. It refuses modern narrative which represents itself as the absolute truth out of time and space. The fact that the form of Dictee is Greek myth indicates that it is left to retelling, and the image of stone keeping water in it in "Terpsichore: Choral dance" chapter figures Cha''s own narrative―the narrative keeping deconstructive power in it. Moreover, Dictee, the body of Theresa Cha, is the place where Cha and women in the history communicate. This indicates that subject is already composed of others, criticizing identical self firmly held by modernity.