幽明錄 ‘鬼’ 故事를 통해 살펴본 六朝時期 사회풍조와 鬼文化

Abstract

Research on old ghost story of “You Ming Lu(幽明錄)” could be worthwhile in order to understand the reality of society, ghost culture and values of people during the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties. So, this study examined shapes of ghosts and their world that might be called abridgement of the real world by content analysis of old ghost story of “You Ming Lu(幽明 錄)”. Ghosts in “You Ming Lu(幽明錄)” were created by the authors as personified figures who could feel the emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, and so these stories had extremely high sense of reality. It’s because the ghosts in the stories, not in conflict with humans, reproduced conventions, ethics and values of actual human society in their stories as were. For this reason, shapes of affectionate ghosts that used to think and live like humans, along with their world, might have mirrored society’s tendency then and ghost culture. Feudalistic values during the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, which put emphasis on predominance of men over women and ancestry, were diversely reflected on the old ghost stories, enhancing the probability of stories as a result. Apart from this, the authors borrowed the ghosts to accuse of desperate societal reality and people’s agony during the conflicts and battles as well as bad societal trends then prevailed. Thus, old ghost story of “You Ming Lu(幽明錄)” could be considered to have reflected the reality of society during the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties and the values of people then.