<금방울전>에 나타난 금방울의 성격과 여성성의 의미

Abstract

<Geumbanguljeon> is an unusual Korean classical novel in which foreign body named 'Geumbangul'(golden bell) is appeared and takes the lead in the whole story. Geumbangul reveals its own nature specially in the early stage of narrative as the ‘sacred object'. A term ‘sacred object' is devised by Maurice Godelier and based its concept on ‘inalienable possessions' which is discovered by Annette Weiner. Geumbangul can be treated as a sacred object in the narrative for the following reasons. First, Geumbangul is given its miraculous power by five hsiens who are assistances of the Great Jade Emperor. All of the special abilities of Geumbangul are based on the power of god through the whole story. Second, the power of Geumbangul is collected back to five hsiens at the last part of story because its abilities belong to them not to common people on the ground from the very beginning. Third, there are different kinds of desire that is expressed in the story by the way people try to occupy and control Geumbangul. Fourth, there is taboo on Geumbangul to which male characters are not able to touch or access. Lastly, characters in the story treat Geumbangul as the mystical creature from the heaven and gaze in awe. If it is possible to treat Geumbangul as a sacred object, we can find underlying meaning of the text because a sacred object could give a shape to invisible things and body forth the things that cannot be represented. The gift of sacred object is gradually occurred in the text from the lower class to the upper class of female group which means sacred object is given to the whole female group. Also it integrates the female group which were divided by the rank. There is critical distance to the male group from Geumbangul so female group is shifted to the independent realm and makes their own identity. In the narrative, all of the conflicts and crisis are caused by male group, and they do not have enough power to resolve it. The subject of sorting it is female group and male group has to get the female's help to solve any problem. It menas the female group is no longer passive and subordinate to the male group. In addition, by the occupation of sacred object, female group can affect the faith and its power is sourceful on the text. However, in the last part of story, male group starts to occupy the sacred object by breaking the taboo. The male character Hae Ryong touches the Geumbangul and take the power of it which makes him national hero. Geumbangul suddenly exit from the text, and Hae Ryong's heroic action becomes a base to fulfill the desire of male group. Moreover, Geumbangul becomes a human named Geum Ryeong and marries Hae Ryong which seems female group subordinate to the male group. It can be connected by the social background of Joseon dynasty in 17 century. Nevertheless, the occupation of sacred object by the male group is incompletely because Geumbangul is disappeared from the text in order to emphasize the heroic action of Hae Ryong. The male group loses their base of power, and it becomes ambiguous. They just conceal the sacred object which is the symbol of female's primitive power and cover it by their ambiguous heroic action. Therefore, on the surface female group seems to be subordinated by the male group but on the hidden side of the text, primitive power of female group still exits. Even after changing Geumbangul's shape to the human, Geumbangul is kept remembering as the measure to resolve the problem of the world so the power of female group which is represented by Geumbangul maintains its own identity.