<최척전>의 작품 구성 방식과 가문 지향적 성격

Abstract

In researching <Choi Cheok Jeon>, it is important to draw out the theme of the novel by investigating relations between the former and latter halves of the work. Here, the first half of the novel mostly consists of narration about love and the second half, about family. Above all, this study examined how <Choi Cheok Jeon> is narratively developed. With results of the examination, then, the study tried to newly interpret the theme of the novel. The findings of the study can be summarized as follows. First, the male and female protagonists of the novel seeks their relationship between husband and wife, not between man and woman as found in the former half of the work. This is clearly supported by Ok Young's attitude to accept Choi Cheok not as just a man, but as her husband. Second, both the protagonists do not sleep together before marriage. This indicates that they pursue happiness from their marital relationship rather than just love through relationship between the opposite sexes. And third, the two main characters obtain their offspring through praying for son-bearing. Thus, the male and female protagonists reach complete happiness by having a son as their offspring after making their marital relationship. These three points make <Choi Cheok Jeon> clear discriminated from other works. They also provide a strong basis for narrative development in the latter half of that novel. Unlike other novels, <Choi Cheok Jeon> does not adhere to affection based on man-woman relationship in its latter half. This part provides a panoramic drama regarding situations the Choi Cheok family experienced in the disturbances of war from their dispersion to reunion. Those situations include making lots of kinships and marital relationships, extending character relations from husband and wife to parent and child, father and son, mother and son, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, grandparents and grandchild, and matrimonial relations. This indicates a process through which a family was properly established by blood and marriage. In the process, characters of the novel developed ‘familyphilia’ with the affection and love of their family. In this sense, <Choi Cheok Jeon> was an embodiment of ‘familyphilia’ based on which the consciousness of family, It was a forerunner of family novels before they began to be written in earnest. This nature of the novel may be seen as an outcome from narrative strategies that its author took to make apparent the theme of family orientation under a full consideration of organic narrative developments from the former to the latter parts of the novel.