Dong Yi — the minor characters
television
When a television serial like Dong Yi sprawls over 60 episodes, it necessarily spreads the net on characters. In this instance, the script rightly includes people from all levels of society, giving us a chance to see the major differences between the classes. This is borrowing from an old theatrical tradition. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we have the Rude Mechanicals — the unsophisticated but skilled manual laborers. More generally, we have the “everyman” characters in both drama and literature. These are the “ordinary” folk of the day. In the theatrical convention, there are two ideas at work. The first introduces characters we can all identify with more easily. Kings and queens are wonderful to behold but, only in our own dreams can we identify directly with them. Most audiences react better to characters when they can see themselves in similar situations. Since the audience for Shakespeare was predominantly the middle and upper classes, the dramatic focus tends to be on the nobility and more senior members of society. Which brings me to the second point.
On many occasions, the reason for including Rude Mechanicals was to provide comic relief. Many of these characters were played as clowns to give the Pit audience something to laugh at, even if it was themselves. However, even though dramatists did have fun at the expense of some of these “common” people, e.g. Dogberry and Verges in Much Ado About Nothing, it was often to make a more serious point about the inefficiency or incompetence of petty officials. Yes, such interlude scenes are designed to get a laugh, briefly breaking the tension before ratcheting the drama to ever higher levels thereafter. But they also represent a form of social commentary, charting the relationships between those with power and those in service. In Shakespeare’s time, everyone knew people like Dogberry, men of little learning who tried to puff themselves up to fill their roles as officials. Today, we can understand that, in a country where literacy levels and educational standards were low, basic administrative and law enforcement authority inevitably ended up in the hands of people who, by today’s standards, were stupid. We recognise it was not their fault they were ill-educated. Indeed, it often suited the ruling class to keep the lower classes in ignorance.
So coming to the representation of Late Joseon Korea in Dong Yi, it’s interesting to look at the more minor characters to work out what message they send to the audience. Let’s remember this as a country of immense poverty with the mass of people living as an underclass of slaves and rural peasants. Indeed, it’s because of the abuse of the slaves that Choi Hyo-Won (Cheon Ho-Jin), Dong Yi’s father, starts the Geom-Gye or Sword Society to act as an underground railway to rescue escaping slaves. Even in the capital city, there’s little opportunity for the average commoner to find anything other than basic manual employment in food production and distribution, building, etc. Essentially education is reserved to the children of the privileged and, even then, it’s only rote learning with little effort made to pass on real understanding. This does not prevent the autodidacts like Dong Yi’s father from passing on basic reading and other skills to their children, but this is a tiny minority. In the first episode we’re introduced the the minute discriminations between the lowborn and freeborn with inter-village rivalry captured in race-fixing to ensure the higher-status children win. Status through birth and the resulting pecking order are everything in this rigid society.
As to the more minor characters, let’s start with the Chief Eunuch (Jung Sun-Il). This is the ultimately loyal and supportive bridge between the King and the Court. In this instance, he’s a sensitive version of Jeeves who works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure everything runs smoothly for his “gentleman”. As a eunuch, I hesitate to say he’s in love with the King, but he’s certainly more consistently in the King’s presence than the Queens and Consorts. The couple understand each other well enough so that the eunuch often knows what the King is thinking even before the King says it. The eunuch also facilitates the King’s incognito meetings outside the palace and always seems pleased, relieved and not at all jealous when the King glows happily in Dong Yi’s presence. Yet, if needed, he can forcefully step forward and berate those around him, e.g. when the King makes an unannounced appearance at a feeding station. In short, he’s highly intelligent and dependable.
It’s interesting to compare him with Court Lady Bong (Kim So-Yi) who crosses over from the Surveillance Bureau to become Dong Yi’s gatekeeper. The contrast with Court Lady Jung (Kim Hye-Sun) who later becomes the head of the Surveillance Bureau could not be greater. Lady Bong is wonderfully scatterbrained and not very bright. Worse, she’s even lacking basic skills like an ability to cook. Yet, for all her weaknesses, she’s remarkably loyal and works tirelessly to ensure Dong Yi’s life runs as smoothly as possible. It’s not clear quite who’s mothering whom. Dong Yi supports and protects Lady Bong, mostly laughing with her and not at her. Yet, when Dong Yi wants anything done, she has no compunction in pushing Lady Bong out of the way. If we assume Dong Yi is even moderately calculating, it would suit her to have someone like Lady Bong as her interface with the court. An unimpressive spokesperson encourages the less perceptive powerbrokers to underestimate Dong Yi herself.
Let’s now come to the Music Department. From the commoner side, we’ve Hwang Joo-Sik (Lee Hee-Do) and Young-Dal (Lee Kwang-Soo). They are a competent administrator and high-standard flautist trapped in a system of nepotism that appoints Oh Tae-Poong (Lee Kye-In) and his even less competent son, Oh Ho-Yang (Ho-min Yeo) as the directors. I feel for Young-Dal who desperately wants to be Dong Yi’s older brother, but he must finally confront the extent of his own incompetence when asked to rescue Crown Prince Kyung-Jong (Yoon Chan) from the police station where hes being held as a pickpocket. In the end, both worthy gentlemen are left struggling in the wake of Dong Yi and her trusted circle, begging Shim Woon-Taek (Kim Dong-Yoon) for crumbs of comfort that they still manage to make a contribution to the investigative work.
As to Oh Tae-Poong and Oh Ho-Yang, even the rest of the family consider them terminally incompetent yet, when it comes to finding scapegoats, this pair are first in line, being exiled in place of the obviously more guilty Oh Tae-Suk (Jeong Dong-Hwan) and the more senior conspirators. Indeed, when it comes to finding someone to frame for the failed arson attack on Dong Yi, the dim son is selected as a “suicide” with a note confessing his guilt handily prepared. Their role is to be victimized although they do become pivotal in finally pinning the blame on Jang Hee-bin’s mother (Choi Ran). It just goes to show that, if you wait long enough, the worm turns and bites the hand that was feeding it. I feel quite sorry for Lady Park (Lee Suk) who’s rather better than her husband Oh Tae-Poong and must not only put up with him, but also crawl to Jang Hee-bin’s mother to get advancement for her family. In the end, the family survives albeit in significantly reduced circumstances. That’s a better outcome than enjoyed by any other members of their original family and faction. Sometimes, the contemptible do find a quiet way to live.
In another article on politics, I argue this serial is about the shift from a status-based society to one that’s more of a meritocracy. Dong Yi herself is the message to her world that, if you have the right abilities, you can rise from the bottom and end up at the top. She becomes both the practical defender of the people in her original class and their inspiration. So neither Hwang Joo-Sik nor Young-Dal change position in the rankings. For all their social connections to the Dong Yi circle, they have reached the appropriate place in society for their abilities. By contrast Lady Park, Oh Tae-Poong and Oh Ho-Yang fall from their more elegant surroundings to a relatively small hut. Their trappings of wealth came from their social connections and not from their abilities. Hence, the “unfortunate” marriage for Oh Ho-Yang who finally gets to sleep with someone who looks like Dong Yi, albeit only from the back and in the dark.
For more general discussions of the social and political context for the serial, see:
Dong Yi — the politics
Dong Yi — superstition and magic
Dong Yi — the minor characters
Click here for the reviews of the narrative itself:
Dong Yi — the first 22 episodes;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 23 to 29;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 30 to 36;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 37 to 41;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 42 to 47;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 48 to 50;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 51 to 54;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 55 to 63;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 64 to 69;
Dong Yi — a review of episodes 70 to the end.
Thinking about books 