방한림전의 ‘남장(男裝)’의 성격과 의미 연구 ― 방한림의 젠더 (gender) 와 동성혼의 의미를 중심으로 ―

Abstract

Female heroic novels basically talk about stories of these women whose outstanding abilities were disregarded as the women went through gender-based discriminations in their societies. As for previously-conducted researches, they had kept trying to improve thoughts or conventional beliefs regarding the sexual discrim- inations from an angle of feminism which was eventually in- terpreted as liberation of the women. Not only that, the researches focused on either investigating an identity of Bang Han-rim’s gender or finding how this significance of Bang’s homosexual marriage is understood or discussed through the history of literature. However, as only discussing the gender of Bang Han-rim, the researches were considered insufficient or dissat- isfactory in that they had failed to most clearly connect what Bang Han-rim’s social gender would signify in the story to this type change of the story as a female heroic novel. In the light of that, this study investigated both original charac- teristics of <The Story of Bang Han-rim> and these types of past female heroic novels as taking a close look into significance of ‘transformation’ found in the female heroic novels and <The Story of Bang Han-rim>. In this study, issues about the gender identity of Bang Han-rim that had been newly introduced in a female heroic novel and effects of Bang’s gender violation on either incidents in the novel itself or the type change of the novel were intensively discussed. From the old times until now, the female heroic novels have been evolving as several different types. Bang Han-rim is under-stood to carry this significance of how this woman who had only won in some limited areas came to secure private areas as well. In addition, in consideration of how Bang Han-rim had proposed a homosexual marriage between women to describe an ideal male image, the study understands that the novel was constantly work- ing hard not only to encourage the women to have their own independent ideas and opinions but also to improve women’s rights. This study aims to present <The Story of Bang Han-rim> as the fourth type which had been newly introduced in the field of female heroic novels. The Story of Bang Han-rim is considered significant in that it is seeking for basic solutions that the other female heroic novels had never done before as claiming to the types of the female heroic novels that have been changing through times. The Story of Bang Han-rim criticizes all these problems of the current society by presenting perfect ideal relations which would consist of females only. As far as this study assumes, The Story of Bang Han-rim is thought to be realizing the absolute utopia for it deals with this ideal world of every relation between the ruler and the ruled, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, man and woman and father and mother.