조선후기 설화 속 하위계층의 주체화 문제 고찰―증여를 통한 관계의 재구성과 도덕적 정당화 방식―

Abstract

In this paper, I studied three types of stories in the late Joseon Dynasty. These stories introduced three special characters, one is the trickster man who fought a bear, another is the lower class man who pretended a noble man, and the other is the woman who sincerely prayed for 25 years. I have noticed the problem of establishing a new social relationship between lower classes and noble man in these stories, therefore I examined what were their moral identity and how they could gain public recognition, even the characters were cracking their ethics of caste system in some ways. They fervently pursued their desires which seemed impossible in reality. In order to escape the norms of reality, they imitated mythic hero’s behavior or gave the gift generously which aroused the fundamental moral orders in community, and then tried to establish new social relations. People are afraid and attracted by divine or transcendent power, so the experience of divine or transcendent power makes the people judge beyond reason. The story showed mythical violence when the notorious man were fighting with great bear, the other stories showed hidden violence when lower class person tried to gift an immense wealth or powerful pray for high class person . I interpreted main action of these stories, that is lower class person threatened the social order through violence, gifts, and blessings. Because those days, the lower class people seemed to follow the ethics and norms of the society, but at the same time they seeked for new morality which make theirselves to become their own subjectivity of human-beings.