Preoedipal Meaning of 'Hyo' in Korean Folklore 'Devoted Son and Dongjasam'

Ko, Seok Man; Ha, Jee Hyun; Yu, Jaehak

Abstract

The story of a Korean folklore 'A Devoted Son and Dongjasam' is as follows: Once upon a time, an old mother had a life-threatening illness. Since no treatment had any effect, she was within an inch of her life. One day, a fortune teller told her son that the only cure is eating human flesh. The filial son and his wife thought that they could give birth to another baby, but would never be able to see their mother again, once she dies. Therefore, when their son returned from school, they sacrificed him in a large pot and offered it to the mother. The next day, her condition dramatically improved. When the son and his wife opened the pot again, to their surprise, they found inside a root of dongjasam, a boy-shaped ginseng. It was a present from the heaven, which was deeply moved by their filial piety. Since the ginseng had a shape like a little boy, they had mistaken it as their son. Therefore, in the evening, the couple could welcome their son returning from school. This folklore had several preoedipal meaning related to 'filial piety.' The cannibalistic action of sacrificing a kid is a symbol of selfmutilate behavior, an unconscious effort to overcome the castration fear related with oedipal conflict. The behavior was expressed as a projective identification process of oral sadistic aggression in the explicit form of masochistic sacrifice of using one's son to save mother's life. It can be interpreted as an extensive rescue fantasy to address the separation anxiety developed in childhood. By studying Korean folklore, the authors concluded that underlying preoedipal theme containing unresolved aggression might be predominant in adult mother-son relationship.