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With emphasis on the social status system of Joseon Korea in the mid-18th century, this paper reexamines Yangban-jeon, a satirical short story written by Pak Jiwon in the 1740s, to understand the fact that Pak neither criticized the social status system nor described the reality in which the system was in decline due to the new phase of the socioeconomic development of the time. Many an existing study on the historical meaning of Yangban-jeon never hesitated to accept Yangban-jeon as a literature showing the collapse of the social status system in the eighteenth century despite some criticisms. The content of Yangban-jeon, however, vividly shows that the social status system of the time was working well without serious challenge. A number of diverse ruling yangban elites appears in the story of Yangban-jeon. Many of them still enjoyed their social status as yangban, although some suffered from economic hardship as seen in the case of poor yangban in the Jeongseon prefecture. It is not reasonable to generalize a certain yangban in poverty as if he represents the whole ruling yangban class. Misinterpretations of Yangban-jeon was a product of historical interpretations, prevalent in the 1960s through 1980s, such as the theory of bud of capitalism, misunderstanding of the grain contribution policy and the hereditary social status system, and the ambiguous concept of the social status, among others.