고전소설 속 가부장적 권위의 추락과 가치관의 변모

Abstract

Confucian patriarchy has an influence on the Joseon society. Many Korean classical novels which were created this period reflected such social standing. Positive image of patriarch in those works represents the support for the Confucian patriarchy and the social system based on it. However there are also some novels emboding patriarchal authority crash. Some patriarchs in Novels of manners, Domestic Novels, Pansori Novels fail to do their job, becaues of some reasons such as moral debauchery, economic incompetence and the lack of responsibility. Those novel types were enjoyed by the people of the lower classes. so reflected the life of them in the late Joseon society. Patriarch's personal wrongdoings are the first responsibility of family problems but national responsibility should not be ignored because the government could not control the collapse of the system and the sense of values following the rapid social change. It is remarkable that wemen take the patriarch's place. They keep the home with the economic power. It means that economic power became the most important factor in the late Joseon society and the family relationships were readjusted depending on it. It shows that Confucian patriarchy could be changeable to a new family system. However those novels do not embody a new family system in spite of posing serious problems of Confucian patriarchy. It is not only the limits of novels but also the limits of the era. The collapse of the Confucian patriarchy and the change of the family system became to appear only in the modern novels after 1920s.