<한조삼성기봉> 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a new understanding ofHanjosamsunggibong (漢朝三姓奇逢) by analyzing the relationship between the aim of the narrative and the methods adopted to achieve it. Hanjosamsunggibongis a Korean Old Novel borrowing characters from the original novel,Okhwangibong (玉環奇逢).However, it starts from the scene in which two characters’ sexes (性別) are changed. The husband and wife, who become female and male, respectively, are reborn and become wife and husband again. The aim of this reincarnation is to provide Queen Kwak (the female character fromOkhwangibong) revenge against her husband, Emperor Mujae (the male character fromOkhwangibong), by giving him the same amount of pain that she endured in her previous life. However, after Queen Kwak is reborn as King Kang and Emperor Mujae is reborn as Queen Cho, King Kang does not show a strong will for vengeance against Queen Cho. Regardless of this, King Kang achieves Queen Kwak’s revenge. Being reborn as male provides King Kang the circumstances through which he can exercise his own rights and use his rightful power as a patriarch. It could even be stated that the revenge is achieved in the first scene where the couple’s sexes are changed. InHanjosamsunggibong,Queen Kwak achieves revenge by "becoming a man". The aim is to achieve a wife’s revenge against her husband, but paradoxically, gender inequality is used to produce another example of a patriarchal narrative. Nevertheless, the narrator keeps reminding the reader of the history of reincarnation, emphasizing that this narrative, superficially a male exercising authority over a female, is actually the process of achieving a female’s revenge from the perspective of Queen Kwak. This means that whatHanjosamsunggibongaimed to achieve could not be expressed directly in the late Joseon dynasty. Therefore, this kind of distortion, the retaliatory spirit of a "female" being conveyed by a "male," is found in Hanjosamsunggibong.