KJCKorea
Journal Central

The purpose of this article is finding out the relationship of the sacred and profane and its meaning in <Heungbu-Jeon>. A connecting point between the sacred and the profane in <Heungbu-Jeon> is based on the lifestyle of Heungbu. On the one hand he looks like economical incompetent, on the other hand he donates everything he has to the people in his community. Also people in his community somehow help Heungbu when he gets in economical trouble. This is what we call the circulation of gift giving and reciprocity of the community. The swallow motif shows this mechanism directly. Because the attitude of Heungbu is not quite different to both people on the profane space and swallow on the sacred space, two heterogeneous spaces can be connected. The aspects of Heungbu’s behavior are rooted in the reality of rural community society in Choson dynasty. After two times of war, almost all of communities fall in pieces and members of community try to rebuild the community standard in order to recover the social order. It leads the people do something reciprocal as Heungbu does in <Heungbu-Jeon>. These movements consist not only of the safety first but also of the right to subsistence; it can be called the basic principle of moral economy. Moreover, <Heungbu-Jeon> restructuralizes two spaces, the sacred and profane: the profane contains the sacred after they are connected. It means the behavior of Heungbu is not individual. His behavior, now, has transcendental basis and this could become one of the social norms. In conclusion, <Heungbu-Jeon> casts some important messages: what kinds of attitudes the individual must have in community.

Heungbu-Jeon, the sacred and profane, rural community society, moral economy, gift giving, reciprocity