19세기 서울, 욕망 투쟁과 가족 해체의 관계 : 「布衣交集」을 중심으로

Abstract

Po-Eui-Kyo-Jib has garnered lots of critical attention due to its problematic nature as it describes extramarital affairs in 19th century Seoul. The existing discussion is mostly focused on woman’s desire highlighting Cho-Ok, the main character’s individual character. However, this perspective needs reconsideration precisely because the important starting point of the literature should be family, rather than individual, given that it was produced in the 19th century. This paper s tries to go one step further from the previous discussion on ‘love affairs’ and women’s desires by shedding new lights on the levels of desires and by connecting them with family issues. If one takes a closer look at the main female character, Cho-Ok, she cannot miss that Cho-Ok is full of ‘the desire for recognition’ as a subject of mimicry/imitation. Thus even though the struggle of desire that she displays certainly leaves very strong impression for readers, she is not able to identify or pursue her own desire because the available model is only patriarchal and because it does not fit into her case. In other words, her desire, from the beginning, departs from that of the main male character’s desire and perspective. Male characters in the piece can be categorized into two different groups. The first group is gentry group(including ‘Yi-Saeng’ and ‘Jung-Yak’) and the other group is socially dispriviliged group(including Cho-Ok’s husband). Gentry characters look at women as the object of their own desire. On the contrary, Cho-Ok’s husband tries to maintain his family by protecting his wife and, at the same time, attempts to be independent while resisting against the structural and hierarchical violence. He also displays the desire for recognition despite his social status. It is at this point that the different shapes of desire are expressed through ‘affairs.’ While ‘affairs’ is a societal taboo which is, in turn, inextricably linked with another societal taboo of family dissolution, men and women of different desires converge and diverge through affairs. Thus Po-Eui-Kyo-Jib has its importance of temporarily loosening family ties in 19th centuries Seoul. Especially Po-Eui-Kyo-Jib shows that family issues are closely related to their societal statuses in that individuals’ pursuits for their personal desires are ultimately directed to family dissolution, which mostly affects families of lower societal class. This collision between personal desires and family structure has to be rendered crucial in interpreting the piece. Family issues in Po-Eui-Kyo-Jib are so volatile as to be likened to the tightrope walking in circus that is destructive in plain sight. The meaning of ‘affairs’ is personal and social at the same time; the act and meaning is derived from the collision between personal desires and family systems and the collision between family disintegration and social taboos. Po-Eui-Kyo-Jib directly deals with a seesaw game between personal desire and family dissolution, which gives us new interpretive possibility and challenge to understand the families in 19th century Seoul.