Constructing New Memory Schemas: Transforming the Representation of ‘Chunhyang the Grotesque’ into ‘Chunhyang the Idealized’

Abstract

This study investigates how a community constructs new collective memory through the transformation of the Chunhyang narrative. In its earlier form, Chunhyang is portrayed as the daughter of a Kisaeng whose unsightliness prevents her from being integrated into the prevailing moral and social order, leading to her suicide and subsequent return as a vengeful spirit. The community later reinterprets her story through ritual practices intended to console the spirit, reconstructing Chunhyang as a beautiful and virtuous woman in order to restore balance between the living and the dead and to reaffirm local moral values. The study further examines how the coexistence of two narrative versions of Chunhyang as a morally exemplary heroine and as a marginalized, deformed figure functions as a site of ongoing negotiation of cultural memory. The reshaping of the narrative operates as a cultural mechanism that alleviates fear, transmits ethical ideals, and regulates social behavior through newly produced symbolic meaning, while also reflecting the moral values and social anxieties of late-Joseon society.