ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the conflicting literary representations of women during the invasions and how the ideal of a virtuous woman was strengthened and reified in the aftermath of the crisis. The realities of the aftermath of the Japanese invasions followed by the disastrous Manchu invasions of the early seventeenth century forced Choson's ruling elites to come to terms with the fact that a great number of women had been violated, kidnapped, or killed by invaders, Chinese soldiers, and opportunists. It would also have been common knowledge that many women of all social classes had not acted in accord with what could be described as Confucian propriety. Yet, in order to continue to build a society based upon the Confucian worldview, the unfortunate histories of the victims of rape, kidnapping, and other violence necessarily had to be forgotten collectively by society.
