차별과 폭력의 메커니즘 ― <홍길동전>을 중심으로 ― = Mechanisms of Discrimination and Violence: Focusing on Hong Gildong-jeon

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The story of Hong Gildong-jeon is a success narrative where Gildong, who suffers from the discrimination between legitimate and illegitimate children, leaves his home to rise to the center of power in a new setting. Regardless of the author's intention, Gildong's actions reveal the mechanisms of discrimination and violence. Just as Chonang tried to secure her position in the family by attempting to eliminate Chunseom's son, Gildong also marginalizes the officials, monks, and wealthy class of Joseon society as unjust, and instrumentalizes foreign nations and peoples to consolidate his power and unite his followers. The experience of social stigma reinforces the boundaries against others.
In this way, Gildong constructs the mainstream identity within a new order where stigma does not operate, transitioning from a victim of discrimination to a perpetrator. However, Hong Gildong-jeon rationalizes Gildong's unethical actions while highlighting him as a heroic figure who opens up his destiny. Gildong's unethicality originates from the historical figures referenced in the novel. While Hong Gildong-jeon cannot be free from the accusation of glorifying a thief as a hero, the reason this novel is still talked about and the character's name is widely used is because it exposes the universal structure of discrimination and reveals the brutality of the violence this structure inflicts on individuals. The public psychology resisting social stigma conspires in creating the backstory of a villain.