In the late 19th century, Joseon was a land echoing with the cries of a collapsing old order and the encroaching ambitions of imperial powers. Shin Kyung-sook’s novel 'Ri-jin' traces the trajectory of a court dancer who, falling in love with French diplomat Victor Collin de Plancy, departs for Paris. Through her signature lyrical prose, the author bridges the palace walls of Joseon with the streets of Paris during the construction of the Eiffel Tower, illuminating the precarious ego of a woman caught in the crossfire of history. Ri-jin is far from a mere protagonist of a romance. She is a tragic figure who was 'the King's property' in the pre-modern space of Joseon and was reduced to an 'exotic spectacle' in the modern space of Paris. What she encountered in France was not true freedom, but the wall of 'Orientalism'—the West's distorted curiosity toward the East. The novel sharply probes the violence that the era of enlightenment imposed on individuals through Ri-jin’s identity crisis. From a folkloric perspective, her dance was an art form carrying the soul of Joseon, yet in a foreign land, it remained nothing more than a taxidermied exhibit. Critics have lauded the work as the 'pinnacle of historical imagination,' noting its achievement in bringing the narrative of a marginalized woman to the forefront of history. Readers felt deep empathy for the agonizing loneliness Ri-jin experienced in Paris, her longing for her homeland, and her fate of remaining an outsider even after returning to Joseon. The media also highly praised the novel’s vivid visual imagery, treating it as a masterpiece that demonstrated Korean literature’s potential for universal appeal. While past controversies surrounding the author have left deep scars on the Korean literary world, it is difficult to deny the literary merit of the text 'Ri-jin.' This novel is a beautiful yet sorrowful memorandum recording the dissonance that occurs when Korean sentiment and Western modernity collide. The path Ri-jin ultimately chose may have been a solitary resistance, a final attempt to remain the subject of her own history rather than a mere object of the times.