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Daily Predicament under the Hierarchy -With Focus on Sohyŏnsŏngnok and Hyŏnmongssangnyonggi-

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2023, (90), pp.35-58
  • DOI : 10.31310/HUM.090.02
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : July 10, 2023
  • Accepted : July 31, 2023
  • Published : August 31, 2023

Hwang Ji Hyun 1

1성균관대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Hierarchical violence imposes various physical·emotional violence and disadvantages. However, the mastery lies not in dramatized events, but in tying one's daily life down by reading another's countenance. This study was conducted on Korea’s two classic novels Sohyŏnsŏngnok and Hyŏnmongssangnyonggi and focused on the daily predicaments faced by Sino, Changdu, Gungno, and Seo-dong, whose names were not mentioned, and attempted to understand the violence and meaning of the hierarchy. In the meantime, various approaches to assistant-characters have been made in the history of research, but the number of studies on unnamed people has been comparatively counted. Therefore, this study aims to pay attention to the daily predicaments they faced and reveal the meaning of each event. First, I explored the case of receiving inconsistent orders with a time difference and receiving different demands at the same time. After that, I revealed that they were punished even though they wanted to obey the order, and that the punishment took on the character of example as warning and venting one's anger. Furthermore, I confirmed that the violence of such a hierarchy is linked to domestic political dynamics, and that the linear hierarchy is not actually a vertically arranged series of hierarchies, while conflicting orders can cause greater hardship to the weak. However, it was also examined that they were not entirely passive, but on the other hand, they were responding by selectively carrying out orders with their own survival strategies. Through the analysis of the case that those at the bottom of the family were caught up in the conflict of order and tried to come up with self-rescue measures, this study has examined the violence and vulnerability of the hierarchy and the antagonism of the subjects participating in it.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.