<방한림전>과 <부장양문록>에 나타난 여성영웅의 차이와 그 의미

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discriminate heroines embodied in two Korean traditional novels, i.e. “Banghanlimjeon” and “Bujangyangmunrok” from each other, and find out possible implications of those heroines. “Banghanlimjeon” and “Bujangyangmunrok” are two of rare Korean traditional heroine novels where a major woman character appear as heroine. Incidentally, it is important to note that contrary to any major woman character in heroine novels as discussed previously, the heroines appearing in these two novels live as if they were man for their whole lifetime, but their conflicts with concubine were castrated, which was pointed out as a limitation of female solidarity by many academic literatures. A few things noticeable in “Banghanlimjeon” and “Bujangyangmunrok” are represented by change of costume into male clothes, steps to marriage and a sense of solidarity between women. Based on these three aspects, this study could compare “Banghanlimjeon” with “Bujangyangmunrok”. As a result, the heroine of “Banghanlimjeon” decides to get married to same sex (woman), always puts on male clothes and lives the life of man all the way, so she fixed her own sexual identity as male and alienated her neighboring women. On the other hand, the heroine of “Bujangyangmunrok” forms a relationship of affection with same sex (woman) and decides to get married to man. She puts on male clothes routinely, but maintains her social activities. She reveals bisexuality owing to experiences in the life of both sexes (man and woman) and considers herself as a man. But she has a mind-set to understand the life of women and form a relationship of solidarity with women. These features varied depending on which orientation the heroine focused her own sexual identity upon, which she selected socially while rejecting her original sexual identity as endowed biologically. In the historical aspect of Korean traditional novel, it is concluded that the former has a strong nature of heroic novel, whereas the latter is characterized by a combination of heroic novel and family novel. And it is concluded that the differences in heroine between “Banghanlimjeon” and “Bujangyangmunrok” are attributed to addition of family novel to heroic novel in nature.