Abstract

This paper analyzes Mun Gi-hwa (副業世界社, 1925), a ttakjibon popular novel (an inexpensive form of popular fiction produced for mass consumption in colonial Korea) that has received little scholarly attention to date. It examines the novel’s narrative characteristics and the violence embedded in its mode of representation. Based on the 1925 lovers’ suicide (情死) incident involving Mun Gi-hwa, a gisaeng (妓生), this novel shares certain features with the series of ttakjibon popular novels inspired by the Kang Myeong-hwa incident of 1923, while also diverging from their conventions in significant ways. Whereas narratives surrounding Kang Myeonghwa locate the source of tragedy in conflicts with patriarchal authority, Mun Gihwa shifts the axis of conflict to the interior dynamics of a modern love triangle, positioning Yi Gak-gyeong—a New Woman known as “Korea’s first female journalist”—as a central antagonist. The novel’s unfiltered use of real names and its publication only one month after the incident exemplify a mechanism of “narrative capture” that transformed real individuals’ tragedies into commercial spectacle. Yi Gak-gyeong is pathologized as a jealousy-driven villainess, while Jeon U-yeong, the actual perpetrator, is absolved through a male-centered narrative logic. Drawing on newly discovered newspaper sources, this study traces the devastating afterlives of those involved, including Yi Gak-gyeong’s opium addiction and early death, and Jeon U-yeong’s death in another lovers’ suicide. This study thus illuminates the literary and cultural–historical significance of ttakjibon popular novels while also encouraging reflection on the ethical responsibilities of media representation.