The Story of Hong Gildong (2 page)

In the previous dynasty of Goryeo (
918
–
1392
), polygamy was legal and widely practiced by elites who could afford to do so. In Joseon, however, Neo-Confucian ideas on family life dictated that a man could have only one legitimate wife. Wealthier men continued to bring extra women into their households as concubines, but these women had no legal standing in society. When a Goryeo man died, all of his wives and their children were eligible to receive a part of his property, but in Joseon only the one wife and her children could claim the inheritance. The number of illegitimate children of the noble
yangban
and their concubines,
known as
seoeol
(secondary children), grew rapidly over the course of the dynasty's history as all of their descendants were placed in the secondary social status.
Seoeol
men found themselves in a difficult situation as they grew up in
yangban
households. They became intimate with
yangban
men who were their fathers, half brothers, and friends, and had access to education. But they were not accorded the rights of nobility. As a result, despite their privileged upbringing and high educational level, they often had to depend financially on their relatives or engage in the occupations of commoners to live.

The word denoting the Joseon dynasty nobility,
yangban
, literally means “two orders,” signifying the two career paths men of noble families were expected to choose between in order to advance themselves in society. They could take the government's literary examinations (
mungwa
) to enter into civil service or the military examinations (
mugwa
) to join the ranks of military officers. Theoretically, any man of noble, secondary, and commoner status was allowed to take the examinations, but only the
yangban
had the economic wherewithal to provide their sons with the resources—including books, writing implements, and tutors—to devote years of their lives to study for the highly rigorous exams. Even when someone from a non-
yangban
background managed to pass the literary examinations and gained a government post, he found himself stuck in junior positions as he was denied promotion due to prejudice against his background. The eligibility of secondary sons of the
yangban
to take the examinations was a controversial issue throughout the Joseon period.

At the beginning of the dynasty's history, laws were promulgated during the reign of King Taejong (r.
1400
–
1418
) prohibiting secondary sons from taking the civil examinations.
9
In the course of the following centuries, in response to periodic requests by high officials and secondary sons themselves, incremental progress was made in improving the condition of the
seoeol
, though under strict conditions and with limited actual effect. Finally, King Yeongjo (r.
1724
–
1776
), himself the son of
a lowborn palace maid, removed all restrictions against secondary children taking the examinations and gave explicit permission for them to address their fathers as Father and older brothers as Brother.
10
Even then, however, they faced considerable obstacles to advancement due to prejudice against their status. It was only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when the traditional order of Joseon began to fall apart, that secondary sons were able to play significant roles in society and politics.
11

Among all the works of Joseon fiction, one aspect that makes
The Story of Hong Gildong
unique is its protagonist's status as a secondary son of a nobleman. The hero laments constantly that though he possesses great abilities, he is prohibited from pursuing his ambitions in the traditional
yangban
way because of his birth. Later on, he explains to the King of Joseon that he wanted nothing more than to serve him as a loyal official or a general, and that his frustration at being barred from that course is what caused him to leave home and turn to the life of an outlaw. It is interesting that the work most rivaling
The Story of Hong Gildong
in its popularity and importance to Korean culture is
The Story of Chunhyang
, which is the only fiction that features a protagonist who is a secondary daughter of a nobleman. The persistent popularity of the two works lies in their ability to make the reader identify with the plight of the protagonists through an emotional identification with their frustrations and aspirations. Such feelings would have been felt all the more powerfully by the original audience of secondary and commoner status people who lived in the deeply troubled time of the twilight of the Joseon dynasty, when the established social and political hierarchy fell into severe crisis.

The second part of
The Story of Hong Gildong
narrates the hero's career as the leader of a band of outlaws to whom he gives the name
Hwalbindang
(league of those who help the impoverished). Scholars have regarded this section as the one that is most subversive of the Joseon dynasty order, as it can be read as exposing the corruption and the oppression of the
yangban
-ruled
society. There is no doubt that the story features themes that are critical of the status quo, in Hong Gildong's role as a righteous bandit who steals goods and treasures from places that hoard them, and in his acting the part of an official who punishes corrupt magistrates. Such plot elements were no doubt highly attractive to readers who had to deal with corruption and abuse of power by the authorities on a regular basis. This is in line with the archetype of the hero as a champion of the common people, avenging them of the wrongs committed by the rich and the powerful, a universal theme that is characteristic of the “noble robber” figure that can be found in many cultures around the world.
12

The political dimensions of the narrative may reflect the frustrations of lower-status people who consumed popular fiction, but they can hardly be seen as particularly subversive or revolutionary. Reforming the policy toward secondary sons was an openly discussed topic among
yangban
officials throughout the dynasty's history, and combating corrupt officials for the sake of the common people's well-being was a central concern of traditional Confucian philosophy. No political or social reason is given for the raiding of the Buddhist temple of Haein, other than the presence of a great deal of treasure in the place (the
wanpan
version of the story features an explicitly anti-Buddhist passage related to the raid, but that is a later addition to the text). In fact, in his communications with the King of Joseon, Hong Gildong makes it clear that he had to resort to outlawry because he could not work within the established order as a righteous government official. This shows that his discontentment lies in his inability to participate in the political system of the status quo, not in his ideological antipathy toward its nature. This is a far cry from a revolutionary who wants to overthrow the entire order and replace it with an egalitarian one, as both the fictional hero and his purported creator have so often been depicted in the modern era.

The third part of the story indulges in ever more fantastic adventures. Though the hero's great exploits in foreign lands open
up a space outside of traditional Joseon society, the narrative becomes more supportive, rather than subversive, of the status quo. The realms he builds on the islands of Jae and Yul have been described as utopias by many critics, some going so far as to suggest that they reflect the egalitarian state that the purported author Heo Gyun dreamed of building in Joseon. Yet a close reading of the text makes such an interpretation highly problematic.

Ever since Thomas More coined the word “utopia” in the sixteenth century, from Greek root words meaning “no place,” it has come to signify not just an optimally functioning society but also one that has achieved such a state through a novel and imaginative arrangement of its community that is different from ones that exist in the world. Due to the influence of Kim Taejun's interpretation of
The Story of Hong Gildong
, people who have never actually read the work might expect some description of an egalitarian system established by Hong Gildong on Yul Island. They might be surprised to find out that there is no such thing in the text, as it offers only a few sparse descriptions of the happy state of its people. After Hong Gildong defeats the King of Yul and ascends the throne, he “ruled with such benevolence that his subjects drummed their full stomachs and sang happy ballads. ‘A time of peace and prosperity has come, like in the days of Yo and Sun.'” The last two names are references to Yao and Shun, two semimythical rulers of ancient China who were regarded as ideal monarchs. Later on, after the episode involving the death of Hong Gildong's mother, it is related that “Through the benevolent rule of the king, the country was at peace and saw rich harvests, the people feeling secure with their households well stocked. No inauspicious incident disturbed the country.” These passages are the entirety of the descriptions of the state of Yul Island under Hong Gildong's rule. In actuality, they are nothing more than depictions of people's contentment under the reign of a good and able monarch, not of a novel system of governance to which the word “utopia” could be applied. In other words, there is no evidence to support the idea that the story tells of a
state with a political and social system radically different from Joseon's, one devoid of hierarchy or caste.

What Hong Gildong establishes on Yul Island is, in fact, a kingdom with himself as an absolute monarch, and references to the titles he grants his officials indicate that he essentially replicates the Joseon political system in his realm. He also adopts the one-legitimate-wife-per-man policy as he makes one of the women he rescued from the
uldong
monsters his wife but takes the other two as his concubines. The secondary sons by the concubines are given the ranks of
gun
(a royal title for a prince) and
bek
(the highest rank of nobility) and sent out to live on Jae Island, which evidently becomes a subordinate territory to Yul Island. It is as if Hong Gildong the king has completely forgotten his earlier frustrations as a secondary son. This points to the traditional nature of the narrative, which depicts the aspirations and the ultimate success of the hero in Confucian and monarchist terms. It would be highly anachronistic then to depict Hong's kingdom as revolutionary or utopian, rather than seeing it in the proper historical context of a Joseon dynasty fantasy of an idyllic land ruled over by an ideal king who is modeled after monarchs of ancient, mythical times.

Whatever kind of political interpretation can be made of the work, its central purpose is not one of ideological advocacy. The moving portrayal of the hero's frustration as a secondary son, his role as the leader of outlaws, and his challenges against authority figures, from local officials to the king, can all be read as critiques of the status quo. But one must also consider the fact that Hong Gildong's ambitions are always couched in traditional terms of desiring to work as a government official. As an intrepid and invincible leader of loyal bandits, he never seriously tries to change the society he lives in, and he ultimately submits to his monarch once he is granted an official position.
The Story of Hong Gildong
is first and foremost a narrative of entertainment about an extraordinary hero who achieves great things despite the initial disadvantage of his birth.

Ultimately,
The Story of Hong Gildong
should be appreciated
not only as one of the best prose narratives produced during the Joseon dynasty, but also as the finest example of popular fiction that appeared in the course of the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth. As a product of the last period of the dynasty, the work differs significantly from the moralistic fiction by
yangban
writers in that it is a plot-driven narrative featuring fast-paced episodes that alternate between scenes of high emotion and exciting action. All available evidence points to the fact that it was originally composed in the phonetic
hangeul
script to accommodate the increasing number of literate common people.

The work's persistent popularity in the modern era can be explained by its elevation of a neglected secondary son as a great hero. In the history of modern Korea, the people of the peninsula have experienced a series of humiliations from colonization, forced division, and domestic oppression. As a result, a central agenda in the political rhetoric of both North and South Korea has been the recovery of national dignity and respect, oftentimes through massive displays of newly acquired power in the realms of the military, economy, and culture. Starting from the attempt by imperial Japan to convince Koreans that they were inferior relatives who had to be civilized through colonial tutelage, the liberated but soon divided nations felt like the bastard children of foreign powers that set their destinies in motion without consulting them on their own desires for the future. As a result, the theme of being disrespected, unappreciated, and underrated by callous and unwise authority figures blind to the emotional needs and the substantial talents of the protagonist, so well portrayed in the first part of
The Story of Hong Gildong
, has a profound resonance in the Korean psyche. In other words, the Joseon dynasty story of a secondary son seeking to overcome the disadvantages of his background and the oppression of his society in order to prove his true worth as a man, a leader, and a ruler has become the story of modern Korea itself.

MINSOO KANG

The immediate problem that a prospective translator of
The Story of Hong Gildong
has to face is the existence of no less than thirty-four extant manuscripts, most of them featuring textual differences of varying degrees. To give some examples, the longest version of the work (the
pilsa
89
) is five times the length of the shortest (the
gyeongpan
17
). Some feature extended passages not found in others, like an anti-Buddhist passage and fuller descriptions of the final battle in the
wanpan
versions. And there are numerous minor variations in details, for instance the
gyeongpan
texts identify the highest government post gained by Hong Gildong's father as the minister of personnel (
ijo panseo
), whereas the
wanpan
texts have him as the state councilor of the left (
jwa uijeong
) and the
pilsa
texts have him as the state councilor of the right (
u uijeong
). The question of which text is the ur-text or the closest to it is a difficult one to answer since only fifteen of them feature definitive dates of publication, ranging from
1893
to
1936
. Lee Yoon Suk, however, has made an exhaustive study of extant variants, coming to the conclusion that the
pilsa
89
version is the oldest.
1

Korean printers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not solicit original works to publish, but took handwritten works that were enjoying popularity and put out printed versions. Further, once a work achieved success in the marketplace, both copiers and printers produced abbreviated versions of the text in order to save money on production, especially on the cost of paper. Given such publishing practices of the time, the longer handwritten versions of a given work can generally be
regarded as earlier versions. The
pilsa
(handwritten) text Kim Donguk
89
is the longest variant of
The Story of Hong Gildong
that has survived. This is the version that many contemporary scholars believe to be either a copy of the ur-text or the one closest in content to it.

Of the thirty-four extant texts, twenty-five were handwritten and nine printed. The printed texts were produced in the three centers of the printing industry in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Korea—Gyeongseong (today's Seoul), Wanju (today's Jeonju in North Jeolla Province), and Anseong (in Gyeonggi Province, south of Seoul). So the printed works are referred to as
gyeongpan
,
wanpan
, and
anseongpan
, the syllable
pan
denoting a wooden or metal plate that was used for printing. The numerals attached to each text indicate the number of standard-size sheets used, providing a general idea of the length of the narrative. So, the
gyeongpan
24
is a printed text of twenty-four sheets that was published in Gyeongseong, while
wanpan
36
is in thirty-six pages and was published in Wanju. The handwritten manuscripts are referred to by the name of the person who owns a particular text or the institution where it is housed, followed by the sheet count. So, the Park Sunho
86
is a handwritten text of eighty-six sheets held in the private collection of Park Sunho, while the Tōyō bunko
31
/
31
/
33
is a work in three volumes of thirty-one, thirty-one, and thirty-three sheets, respectively, that is at the Tōyō bunko (Asian Studies) library in Tokyo, Japan.

The most commonly used English translation is Marshall Pihl's, which was first published in
Korean Journal
in
1968
and reprinted in Peter H. Lee's
1981
Anthology of Korean Literature
.
2
It is a rendering of the
gyeongpan
24
, one of the shortest variants, which was thought at the time to be the authoritative version but is now considered by scholars to be abbreviated from
gyeongpan
30
. What follows here is a translation of the longest and probably the oldest of the surviving manuscripts, the
pilsa
89
.

I have also chosen to use the new revised system of
romanization that was introduced in
2000
by the Republic of Korea's Ministry of Culture, now the standard in South Korea, rather than the older McCune-Reischauer system. I have found the new system to do a better job of expressing the sounds of
hangeul
characters. It also does away with the diacritical marks of McCune-Reischauer, which gave transliterations a technical look that is intimidating to readers unfamiliar with Korean literature and
scholarship.