복수의 외피와 권선징악의 실체 <한조삼성기봉>의 서사 전략 분석

초록

This article reinterprets the narrative contradictions that have often been noted when Hanjosamseonggibong is read through the lens of the revenge narrative not as flaws in the work, but rather as deliberate narrative strategies. Whereas previous research has tended to treat the avenger’s lack of will and the asymmetrical gender switching as limits of an incomplete revenge plot, this article reframes those very features within a new analytic rubric: a moral-retributive narrative that rewards virtue and punishes vice—i.e., gwonseon-jingak—cloaked in the guise of revenge. In other words, although the text dons the outward trappings of settling a private grudge, its internal logic operates to consolidate the patriarchal order, summarized by the dictum that “an unvirtuous woman must be punished.” Demonstrating this shift in emphasis from private retaliation to didactic moral order constitutes the core of the article. To that end, the article analyzes two key devices—“the blank of revenge” and “the asymmetry of gender switching.” First, the “blank of revenge” deliberately effaces the avenging subject’s emotions and memory, redirecting the narrative engine from personal vendetta to the inevitability of self-incurred consequences. Second, the “asymmetry of gender switching” opposes a male subject who retains memory to a female object who does not, thereby attributing the woman’s downfall not to karmic debts from a previous life but to her present lack of virtue. Together, these strategies sharply polarize the fates of female figures along the axes of punishment and reward. They render the entire narrative as a didactic text that promulgates an ideal womanhood demanded by the patriarchal order. Furthermore, the article shows that Hanjosamseonggibong constitutes a paradigmatic case of a derivative, spin-off narrative: it capitalizes on the narrative legacy of its predecessor, Okwhan Kibong, to draw readers in, and then disseminates a conservative ethic. By proposing a new analytical framework that integrates the work’s internal logic with its ideological function, the article clarifies the intentionality behind points long regarded as narrative inconsistencies and reassesses the literary-historical significance of Hanjosamseonggibong.

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