• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.38
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• pp.65-101
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• 2018

In the late Joseon Dynasty, patriarchal ideology became central to the family and the clan, and once again became acutely felt with "the familism of clan rules that centered around a legitimate and eldest son." The establishment of the family-clan system, though somewhat complex, was largely aimed at the family line of "a paternalist-a legitimate and eldest son." The trend was not limited to a particular family, but rather, was a historical and social trend. Changseonggameirok showed how to solve the family crisis by setting up a problem for the next generation's patriarch. This paper tries to explain the issue of Hwachun's complex as the legitimate and eldest son complex. First, it suggests that Hwachun's complex is as universal as the Cain complex, also known as the eldest son complex, and that Hwachun's complex is a special instance of the legitimate and eldest son complex in Changseonggameirok. Next this paper studies the aspects of Hwachun's legitimate and eldest son complex combined with Mrs. Sim's complex, as well as her daughter-in-law's complex, and eventually tracks the development of the family-clan complex. As a result, we've come to a new conclusion that the legitimate and eldest son complex was found in Changseonggameirok for the first time in Korean literary history. This paper also examines the fact that when the legitimate and eldest son complex was transferred to Hwajin, it became a family complex that Hwajin had to contend with; this paper tracks the process wherein Hwajin's filial piety solved the legitimate and eldest son complex. As a result, we realized that Hwajin's filial duty and brotherly love went beyond his feelings for Mrs. Sim and Hwachun, and supported the substantiation for "the familism of a clan that is based on rules of the legitimate and eldest son" in the course of public opinion. However the familism of these rules was not embodied in the absolute; in the royal family, for example, it was rather flexibly implemented when the characters admitted to breaking the law. In addition, this paper provides the room for a critical reading of Changseonggameirok, reflecting back on the underlying guilt and psychological pain of the characters who are affected by the particular rules, and concluding that guilt and suffering are fundamentally insoluble. This is because the two ideas, "the legitimate and eldest son complex" and "the familism of a clan rules centered on a legitimate and eldest son" are two sides of the same coin.