《요재지이》 속 여성의 변주 - 이물에서 구원자까지

Variations of Female Figures in Liaozhai Zhiyi: From the Monstrous Other to the Redemptive Savior

《요재지이》는 明末 淸初에 浦松齡이 쓴 문언 단편소설집이다. 이 책은 중국의 志怪와 傳奇의 전통을 계승하여, 여우, 요괴, 귀신 등 異物과 사람 간의 환상적인 이야기들을 담았다. 본 고에서는 이중 특히 ‘이물 여성’에 주목하여, 여성이 남성과 다른 이질적인 방식으로 형상화되어 있음을 포착하고, 이를 시선, 공간, 몸의 층위에서 살펴봄으로써 여성의 문학적 재현 방식과 그 이면에 내재한 남성 심리를 분석하였다. 《요재지이》 속에서 여성은 物, 異物, 妖物, 尤物 등으로 명명되며, 남성의 시선과 욕망에 의해 대상화되지만 동시에 공간을 자유롭게 이동하는 주체적인 이동성을 획득한다. 그녀들은 전통적인 여성 공간을 넘어 무덤, 서재, 지하의 저승세계까지 넘나들며, 자기 몸에 대한 결정권을 행사한다. 그러나 《요재지이》에서 여성이 현실 여성의 사회적 제약을 초월하고, 가부장적 질서에 대해 무의식적으로 저항할 수 있는 것은, 이물의 존재였을 때뿐이다. 이에 비해 남성 주인공은 이물 여성과의 관계 속에서 오히려 수동적 위치로 전락하며, 자신의 결핍과 무력함을 그녀들의 초월적 능력으로 보완 받는다. 이물 여성들은 시부모 봉양, 가사 노동, 자녀 양육 등 공동체 내부의 실질적인 역할까지 담당함으로써, 이상적 여성상에 대한 사회적 기대를 수행한다. 이물 여성은 웃음, 언어, 행동을 통해 가부장적 질서를 교란하며, 병을 치료하고 죽은 이를 소생시키는 초월적 능력을 통해 서사의 중심을 차지하기도 한다. 본 고에서는 《요재지이》의 여성을 단순한 판타지의 대상이 아니라, 문화적 억압과 사회적 욕망이 교차하는 지점에서 형상화된 복합적인 상징체로 읽고자 하였다.

The female figures in Liaozhai Zhiyi are multi-layered entities whose representations are far too complex to be interpreted merely as passive objects reflected through the male gaze. While these women are undoubtedly subjected to the gaze of male protagonists—objectified through their beauty and mystery and rendered sensual figures within labels such as “wu(物)”, “yaowu(妖物)”, “yiwu(異物)”, “youwu(尤物)”—their portrayals cannot be reduced to simple passivity. Despite the mechanisms of unilateral objectification, the women in Liaozhai Zhiyi do not remain static images. Rather, through various narrative strategies, they move across spaces with agency, initiate and lead relationships with men, and even serve as saviors and healers who restore social order. In this way, the women in Liaozhai Zhiyi can be analyzed as crucial cultural signifiers that project the era’s social desires, repressions, and cultural imagination—far beyond being mere subjects of voyeurism or embodiments of fantasy. In fact, the majority of these female figures are depicted as otherworldly beings—ghosts, fox spirits, or spirits of plants and animals—yet their portrayals indirectly reflect the social oppression experienced by real women of the time. They transcend the boundaries of the domestic space traditionally assigned to women, moving freely through temples, graves, studies, forests, and even the realm of ghosts. In doing so, they occupy broader and more flexible spaces than men. In contrast, the male protagonists are confined to enclosed spaces and become passive in their relationships with these female others. They compensate for their own incompleteness and limitations through the supernatural powers of these women. This spatial confinement and passivity metaphorically express the male subject’s helplessness and limitations in reality, while also reflecting a psychological unconsciousness in which men sought redemption through fantastical female figures. Of particular note is that these supernatural women do not remain mere objects of desire. They enter the inner sphere of the family unit and take on realistic and practical responsibilities such as household chores, nursing the sick, and raising children. These actions symbolically reveal the gap between the idealized expectations and the repressive realities faced by actual women, as these imaginary figures fulfill the Confucian roles of the virtuous wife and wise mother demanded by traditional society. Although Liaozhai Zhiyi frames women’s bodies, actions, laughter, and language within a thoroughly male-centered narrative structure, such representations are not entirely unilateral. Women often display free-spirited individuality through their laughter, gestures, and speech, escaping male control. More notably, they play central roles in the narrative by exercising their transcendent powers to heal illness and even revive the dead. Through this process, the women take command of the narrative with more agency and omnipotence than the men. This is not simply the product of one writer’s imagination but reflects a narrative embodiment of the male unconscious shaped by the intellectual, philosophical, and socio-economic transformations of the turbulent Ming-Qing transition period. Thus Liaozhai Zhiyi can be interpreted as a literary projection of the cultural ideology, male-centered gender consciousness, and familial ideals of late Ming and early Qing society, expressed through the depiction of the female as “the Other.” In this sense, the women of Liaozhai Zhiyi are not merely fictional beings, but complex symbols that reveal latent desires, anxieties, and the tension between ideal and reality embedded within the unconscious minds of men of that time. Therefore, the analysis of female representations in Liaozhai Zhiyi offers more than a gendered reading—it opens the possibility of a multi-layered interpretation that encompasses cultural, ps