「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 is a heroine novel which assumes the form of women's control over men, adopting a heroine.
I think that the understanding of 「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 is partly insufficient by reason that the existing studies have attached weight to an emergence motive of heroine novel or a division of the branches, and thus I looked into women's awareness on this work through the characters and a confliction.
The characters appearing in 「The Life of Hong, Kye- Weol」, suffer a confliction internally and externally. In light of such a confliction, we can look into a phase of women's awareness.
The main conflicts described in this novel, correspond to Kye-Weol's inner conflict as a woman, Bo-Kook's inner conflict as a man, and external conflicts between husband and wife, one's wife and concubine and the societies.
Kye-Weol, a woman of a distinguished ability, has to serve Bo-Kook as her husband, who was the man under her command, just by reason of that she is a woman. Conversely, Bo-Kook marries Kye-Weol who is superior to him, and he gets faced with serving her as his wife according to martial law. In this way, both Kye-Weol and Bo-Kook as a woman and a man respectively, suffer a confliction in a gap between their abilities and circumstances in which they are placed.
In this context, Yeong-Chun, Bo-Kook's concubine, comes to deepen their external conflicts. And finally, a feud between Kye-Weol and Yeong-Chun ends with that Kye-Weol kills Yeong-Chun.
In this way, I analysed a certain awareness that women had in the Joseon Dynasty period, through internal and external conflicts of the characters.
Next, I raised the issue of women's awareness by dividing the characters suffering such a conflict into women and men, and comparing them.
In case of dividing the characters appearing in 「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 into women and men, male characters are incompetent, timid and caricatured, while female characters are depicted as competent and courageous heroines.
「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 which exhibits women's awareness in this way, however, also has a limit. 「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 seems to suggest new conception of a woman superior to a man, but it merely advocates another conception of a man needed for the society of the day, Pyeong-Kook, just by employing an appearance what is called a woman dressed like a man.
In spite of the limit, a standing of 「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 as a heroine novel, is significant. This work is a heroine novel which assumes the most advanced form of women's control over men, holding their dominant positions. Probably, one might have the considerable courage to stand on a composition of women's control over men, allover the surface of the work.
The creation of a heroine novel which exhibits women's awareness in a situation of the Joseon Dynasty period, is significant. Also, 「The Life of Hong, Kye-Weol」 as a heroine novel satisfied the women readers' interests with its unique contents and tastes, distinctively from the novels of the formal days, and opened the possibility of reader sociology even by making women have a will to raise their social positions and giving them hope.