Madame Ong, a tragic subject of the new story
Authors: Cho Min hyung 
Published: November 2024

This study aims to define <Madame Ong> as a “tragedy,” a story about confronting fate and destiny, through the gender/sexuality theories and “melancholy” of Judith Butler. Despite its comedic narrative structure, it is a “sad” story of the separation of a man and a woman who were in love. Furthermore, it can be interpreted as a story about “fate.” Ong’s fate is “dying out husbands (sangbusal),” and she dreams of “a normal relationship” to resolve it. It is a “myth” that Ong proposes to overcome fate. However, Ong’s dream as a myth is frustrated by the violence of the gods. Based on this, Ong withdraws her myth and wages war against the gods. This is a “tragic” figure who is in conflict with fate. In the end, Ong abandons her conflict with the gods and reconciles with the myth by appropriating “chastity (Sujeol),” or chastity that is not approved by the community, which can be different from the existing “chastity.” In this sense, the myth ceases to be a myth but becomes a “new story.”
In <Madame Ong>, Gangsoe obtains “Jangseung Dongti” because he harmed Hamyang Jangseung after recognizing him as another man who often flirts with Ong. Furthermore, Byeon, who demanded “chastity” in the original <Byeongangsoega>, exhibits a more mature love by requesting Ong to get remarried in <Madame Ong>. However, the community disapproves of the love between these two people. They are outsiders, and their “spiritual” love is denied, while the performance emphasizes their “physical” love, and their sexuality becomes “bad.”
At this time, the important axis in <Madame Ong> is religiousness or transcendence. The scenes of Songbongsa’s fortune telling and the female doctors performing a variation of the “East Sea ritual (Donghaean Byeolshingut)” are depicted as rituals in shamanism. In the latter case, the female doctors act as mediators between the nearly-dead Byeon and the living Ong. The world of the gods is a space that shares issues of gender and class with the human world. Therefore, the gods and myths represented in <Madame Ong> are indistinguishable. The “humanic” gods are further depicted as “self-destructing vulgarians.” The scene of the “Jangseung meeting (Jangseung hoeui)” demonstrates the discussion of killing Byeon in the most painful way because their divinity has been damaged. Consequently, Byeon, in addition to Jangseung Dongti, becomes a “jangseung” like themselves and shares their suffering. At this point, the dignity of the gods has shattered, as they argue that their situation is worse than that of humans. However, although divinity has been damaged, the power they possess as gods has not disappeared. Accordingly, Ong uses her body to wage a “guerrilla war” and confront the jangseungs.
After the battle with the jangseungs, Ong has the opportunity to negotiate, but she is unable to reclaim the steel bars that she desires most. Daebangjangseung advises Ong to “live your life” and leaves another request or order for her. Ong refuses and says that she will also become a jangseung, seemingly choosing to remain chaste in the form of suicide (Jongsa), but ultimately says, “I will not do it (Anhallayo)” again, leaving a double refusal. In response, Ong becomes a woman who does not remain chaste (sujeol) and cannot be trusted, but she defines her life as “chaste” through appropriation. At this time, chastity is considered “obscene” in terms of sexual politics because it is with the objectified Byeon, and it is “worse” than the first real relationship with Byeon. However, Ong affirms such love for herself. Furthermore, she internalizes Byeon’s loss by spitting out and becomes the subject of “melancholy.” This transfers the loss of the past to the present and the future and opens the possibility of new ethics and politics. Ong, who appropriates this with the (unrecognized) language of chastity, becomes the