The Concentric Circles of Dictee: Reclaiming Women's Voices through Mothers and Daughters' Stories

Scholars have widely debated the meaning of Dictee including its structure, organization, purpose, and representation of the women depicted. Dictee is typically framed according to the nine Greek muses that are understood to outline each section of the text. The organization of nine sections according to the Greek muses forms an incomplete structure, however, that we as readers must recognize. Readers must not only recognize the ordering according to an epic structure, but also the ordering that draws from Korea, a focus of the text. Cha challenges her readers to search beyond their Western knowledge of Greek mythology, and to learn from the images she provides in order to read a text of Korean and Western tradition. Focusing on the mother and daughter relationship, rather than the cultural context of the story, I argue, is the key to understanding Dictee's structure and elicits a Korean as well as a Western perspective. My analysis of Dictee, therefore, follows Cha's metaphor of mother and daughter relations found in her theme of concentric circles, thereby emphasizing the Korean tradition of this text.