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A Study on the Power Relation between Males and Females in Go-geum-so-chong

Kim Sera 1

1전북대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The present dissertation goes a step further from the meaning dealt with in preceding studies, which simply assessed Go-geum-so-chong as humor or humoristic beauty, and deducts the narrative implications of the male and female power relation between the main characters, in an attempt to make a connection with the social perspective that objectifies and excludes women for the purpose of male satisfaction. The reason for ‘rereading’ these works from the position of a female audience living now, not as a reader or writer of the time, is that the story of Go-geum-so-chong, in which molestation and violence are routinely perpetrated against lower hierarchy women by men with power, still displays a significant critical consciousness for the situation we live in today. The things these women experience in the story are not placed in a relationship between offender and victim but reversed into a relationship between a beneficiary and a benefactor, who open their eyes to an act of sex yet unfamiliar to them and thankfully allows them ‘to know its joy’. The bodies of women otherized by male Yangban are thoroughly alienated even by the women themselves. Ultimately, the candid gaze toward women by male nobles and the way in which they treat women are revealed without filter, and the women who are displayed through the stories are totally nonexistent or become completely silent entities. The subjects that may be disciplined with a dignified voice in the commentary section are those with a lowly social status. Ultimately, the male commentator is silent or, with laughter, sympathizes with the ridiculous and strange behavior of the male yangban who share the same social class, but the males with a lower status than themselves, they trample, criticizing them severely. What the male nobles do to lowly women is show appreciation and have fun, but what the lower class men do to the same women is impart depravity or wickedness. The expression of criticism is too exclusive and discriminating to view it as emphasizing ‘admonishment’ as a customary or decorative expression.

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