The Mongdal-gwisin is the vengeful ghost of a young man who died a bachelor, the male counterpart to the maiden ghost. In a society that saw marriage as life’s completion, the grief of never achieving it is figured as a soul that cannot depart even in death.
It comes with the custom of the "ghost wedding," in which two unmarried spirits are posthumously wed to ease their grief. More than horror, it expresses a Korean view of the restless dead steeped in pity and reconciliation.