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Hong Gil-dong Jeon: Achievement of Succession and Its Meaning

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2023, (91), pp.41-63
  • DOI : 10.31310/HUM.091.02
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : November 5, 2023
  • Accepted : November 30, 2023
  • Published : November 30, 2023

PARK KI HWAN 1

1제주대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper is aimed at examining the aspects of the protagonist Hong Gil-dong’s succession of a family line as an adopted son in Hong Gil-dong Jeon (The Biography of Hong Gil-dong) and thereby clarifying its meaning, This is also an attempt to clarify the changes of the protagonist in the first half and the second half of the novel, while also identifying the principle of his behavior that penetrates the entire work. To this end, this paper has analyzed the process that the threat caused by Gil-dong acts on the home and the whole country and leads to his exclusion. This was due to the conflict between the problematic situation of humble birth and the contradictory conditions of extraordinary talents and Gil-dong attempted to establish legitimacy as a way to overcome such a problematic situation. The process led to the acquisition of private and public recognition represented by the family and the state by acquiring the throne in Yuldoguk, a country different from the Joseon dynasty, which completely succeeded the family. This can be interpreted as a result of resolving prohibited desires in a hierarchical status-based society in its own way, and as a result, Hong Gil-dong Jeon can be defined as a work that contains the best results that can be derived within the framework of the contemporary ideology at the same time, given that the situation of conflicts was resolved through coexistence rather than antagonistic logic.

Citation status

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