This study examines Yi Ok’s (李鈺) Jijubu (蜘蛛賦), focusing on the transformation of the spider figure and the human reflection embedded in that transformation. In Jijubu, the spider is not presented from the outset as a positive being. Yi interprets the spider’s web-making as an act driven by calculating intention and defines the spider as a “thief among insects.” He therefore attempts to destroy both the web and the spider. The spider, however, explains that its web is merely a means of survival and compares its own act of capture with human practices such as fishing with nets, hunting, and legal punishment. Through this counterargument, the spider questions the consistency of human judgment. It thus moves from being an object judged by humans to a speaking subject capable of explaining its own behavior and, ultimately, of questioning the very standards by which humans judge other beings.
The spider’s argument extends beyond self-defense. By describing the characteristics of butterflies, flies, cicadas, bees, mosquitoes, and dragonflies, the spider associates their behavior with various forms of human desire, including ostentation, flattery, pursuit of profit, self-display, the discrepancy between public justification and private desire, covert exploitation, and frivolity. The spider’s web therefore develops from a simple device of predation into a broader image that reflects both human mechanisms of capture and the structures of desire. The significance of Jijubu lies not in transforming the spider from a negative being into a positive one, but in shifting the position from which judgment is made, thereby compelling humans to reconsider their own behavior and standards of evaluation.
To clarify this feature, the study also examines earlier representations of spiders and Yi Ok’s Damchung (談蟲), while using the Ming-dynasty works Hilseodae (黠鼠對) and Mundae (蚊對) as limited comparative references. In Hilseodae, the rat contrasts its minor theft with the far greater acts of plunder committed by humans, thereby criticizing the selective application of punishment. In Mundae, the mosquito does not speak directly; instead, a human interlocutor uses the mosquito as a point of departure for criticizing anthropocentric perception and violence among members of the same human community. These differences make the distinctive structure of Jijubu more visible, particularly the fact that the creature initially subjected to human judgment acquires its own voice and turns human language and standards of judgment back upon humans themselves.
The study further considers writings on spiders by Yi Deok-mu (李德懋) and Nam Gong-cheol (南公轍). Their works show that close observation of spiders’ movements and habits was not unique to Yi Ok. What distinguishes Jijubu, however, is the way such observation is transformed into the spider’s self-defense and into a broader critique of human judgment and desire. The originality of Jijubu, therefore, lies not simply in its detailed observation of a small creature, but in its transformation of such observation into a reflective mode of writing through which humans are led to reconsider their own values and conduct. In this sense, Jijubu may be understood as a work in which the close observation of small things in late Joseon literature converges with Yi Ok’s distinctive mode of human reflection.