KJCKorea
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This study aims to investigate the background of the serialization of Chungno Manseok-jeon, a full-length novel by Lee Bo-sang serialized in the Maeil Sinbo in 1936, in relation to its media characteristics. An expansion of the "Chaste Woman Lady Park" anecdote from the traditional Yadam collection Gyeseo-japrok, the novel is characterized by shifting the narrative focus from "chastity" (烈) to "loyalty" (忠), thereby positioning the servant Manseok as the central protagonist. The study points out that this narrative transformation was closely linked to the editorial direction of the Maeil Sinbo, the official organ of the Japanese Government-General of Korea. Specifically, the recurring substitution of master-servant relationships with father-son and monarch-subject dynamics within the narrative is identified as a sophisticated narrative implementation of the Japanese "National Moral Theory." This ideology sought to facilitate colonial subjectification by directly linking Confucian concepts of loyalty and filial piety to devotion toward the Emperor. Furthermore, the decision to serialize Lee Bo-sang's Hanmun-hyeonto (Korean-punctuated Chinese) style novel was a result of a commercial media strategy aimed at incorporating the Chinese-reading demographic into the newspaper's expanding readership during the 1930s. In conclusion, through the discussions in this study, Chungno Manseok-jeon can be understood as a strategic text of the Maeil Sinbo, born at the intersection of political propaganda as an official organ and commercial necessity for modern newspaper management.

This article argues that one of the central significances of research on classical literature in the age of artificial intelligence and multimedia lies in its capacity to explore humanity’s experiments in storytelling. From this perspective, it compares the contrasting narrative forms of classical fiction and video games through their respective uses of paintings. To establish an appropriate comparative framework, the study first deductively identifies and categorizes four narrative functions of paintings on the basis of their distinctive formal properties. It then narrows its analytical focus to the category of functions that operate at the point of narrative progression, examining Sohyeonseongnok in Chapter 3 and Layers of Fear in Chapter 4 as representative cases. A comparison of Sohyeonseongnok and Layers of Fear shows that paintings perform three shared sub-functions. First, they stimulate the emotions of characters and thereby trigger actions grounded in those emotions (event progression). Second, they convey multiple layers of implication through a single image (meaning transmission). Third, depending on their visual content, they amplify and articulate the texture of events in a particular direction (event representation). This framework helps clarify, for example, the deeper reason why Kim Hyeon in Sohyeonseongnok becomes lovesick after seeing a painting, as well as the way in which the painting romantically packages and communicates worldly desire. At the same time, Sohyeonseongnok and Layers of Fear differ in terms of narrative levels and the visibility of paintings. These generic differences also shape the narrative functions of paintings. In video games, narrative may be distinguished into three levels: (a) story, (b) intended Plot, consisting of clue-based plot-pieces and a plot-frame, and (c) completed plots. The functions of paintings vary in specific ways across these narrative levels. Major differences from the functions of paintings in classical fiction include the fact that paintings are presented as fragments of plot to be discovered by the player, that the direction of the plot is regulated through the process by which paintings are produced, that paintings trigger both gameplay and plot formation, and that they influence the pace at which individual plots progress. In particular, as visualized images, paintings contribute to activating a defining feature of video game narrative: the advancement of plot through player participation. This is evident, for example, in the way interaction produces an alignment between the actions of the painter and those of the player, and in the way direct visual stimulation given to the player shapes the development of the plot.

Why do female heroes experience shame while goddesses experience guilt? Considering that “pattern” denotes not only visible forms but also repeatedly performed behavioral modes, it is noteworthy that the affects experienced by female heroes and goddesses in K-Pop Demon Hunters and Segyeong-bonpuri are linked to certain patterns. In K-Pop Demon Hunters, Rumi undergoes shame due to the pattern of evil spirits inscribed on her body. In Segyeong-bonpuri, Jachungbi is seized by guilt because of the pattern of killings she committed to protect herself. Women’s shame is connected to the history in which women’s bodies have always been defined as different from men’s. The shame Rumi experiences is a gendered affect. Jachungbi’s guilt, likewise, is not divorced from gender, insofar as sexual violence lies at its origin. In the subsequent narrative, Jachungbi is pressured to experience shame, and in this sense, her guilt interlocks with shame. While Rumi becomes a female hero through overcoming shame, Jachungbi becomes a goddess by internalizing guilt. From this perspective, the trajectories of the female hero and the goddess can be seen as distinct. However, the primordial menstruation scene in Segyeong-bonpuri and the moment in K-Pop Demon Hunters where Rumi refers to herself as a “mistake” evoke the persistent reality that women remain grounded in a sense of self-negation. Ultimately, the trajectories of the goddess and the female hero converge.