이수백 피살의 문학적 재현

초록

This study examines how private vengeance, state legal order, and the Confucian ethics of loyalty and filial piety collide in various texts documenting the killing of Yi Subaek during the reign of King Injo. Yi Subaek, who had joined the rebel forces of Yi Gwal, avoided execution by killing Yi Gwal himself and surrendering to the court, after which he lived under a measure of royal clemency and was later released from exile. However, the sons of Yi Jungno and Pak Yŏngsin—both killed by Yi Subaek during the fighting along the Imjin River—identified him as their fathers’ murderer and killed him in broad daylight before submitting a petition requesting punishment. The ensuing debates over how to handle their crime produced a political and intellectual scene in which the ethics of “not sharing the same sky with one’s father’s enemy,” the principles of state law, and the expectations of popular sentiment clashed sharply, forming a political and intellectual scene of intense tension. This study analyzes the arguments of Kim Yu, Yun Pang, O Yun’gyŏm, and King Injo as recorded in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, and further examines Chong Yagyong’s brief account of the incident. Chong refrains from offering any explicit legal or moral judgments on the case. Instead, he presents the ministers’ arguments and the king’s compromise in the form of a neutral arrangement of facts, thereby revealing an intersecting structure of vengeance, law, and public feeling. This narrative strategy reflects Chong’s stance as a compiler of historical records and suggests a deliberate choice to leave moral evaluation to the reader. In contrast, funerary inscriptions and commemorative writings associated with the individuals involved transform the same incident into a heroic family narrative celebrating loyalty and filial virtue. The epitaphs portray Pak Yŏngsin as a loyal martyr, depict Pak Jibyŏng and his brothers as embodiments of righteousness and martial prowess, and cast Yi Subaek as a cruel villain, thereby maximizing the moral necessity of vengeance. By incorporating auspicious signs foretelling success and emphasizing the enthusiastic sympathy and emotional response of the populace, the text completes the episode as an act of righteous retribution. This comparison demonstrates how a single historical event acquires divergent ethical and aesthetic meanings across historiographical and literary representations, revealing the killing of Yi Subaek as a crucial intersection where late Joseon narratives of vengeance and perceptions of political order converge.

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