<유효공선행록>의 정보 전달 구조와 가문 질서의 재편

초록

This study examines how Yuhyogongseonhaengnok constructs and reorganizes family order through the circulation of information and the distribution of interpretive authority. Previous scholarship has largely focused on Yu Hong’s slander, Yu Yeon’s suffering, and Yu Jeong-gyeong’s favoritism in order to explain the work’s ethical consciousness and its structure of poetic justice. This study, however, argues that the central conflicts of the narrative emerge not simply from individual immorality, but from the unequal structure through which information is transmitted, interpreted, and authorized within the family. In the first half of the narrative, Yu Hong monopolizes the channels of explanation and repeatedly intervenes in Yu Jeong-gyeong’s judgment. As a result, his interpretations function as the dominant framework through which events are understood, while the voices of Yu Yeon and Lady Jeong are excluded from legitimate processes of explanation and verification. In particular, Yu Yeon responds to repeated accusations not through direct resistance but through silence, feigned madness, and self-isolation in the rear quarters. His withdrawal suspends the performative role of the legitimate heir and reveals how family order is maintained through the restriction of speech and interpretive authority. In the latter half of the narrative, however, external testimonies, accumulated circumstances, and the renewed intervention of relatives destabilize the previously dominant system of judgment. Events that had once appeared isolated become interconnected, and Yu Hong’s interpretations gradually lose their authority. Consequently, Yu Yeon’s silence and Lady Jeong’s actions are reinterpreted within a different context, while the authority to define and judge events becomes redistributed across multiple actors. Ultimately, the restoration depicted in Yuhyogongseonhaengnok is not a simple return to moral order or the triumphant restoration of the legitimate heir. Rather, it represents a process of reorganizing a family order that has already undergone structural rupture. Through this analysis, the study demonstrates that the work narrativizes the instability of interpretive authority and the reconstruction of family order through shifting structures of communication and judgment.

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