KJCKorea
Journal Central

<Snail maiden> is a tale about the marriage of different beings, in which a snail turns into a woman and marries a man. That is folklore known to cause a tragic situation because of a man breaking a taboo. However, looking at the versions passed down, it is hard to call it a tragedy. Rather, many versions offer a happy ending or a positive outlook for overcoming hardships. That was because the two lacks and the two taboos in <Snail maiden> could not be discerned. Due to that, the interaction between desire and lack in an antagonistic relationship could not be figured out. Snail maiden has both a sexual signifier and a richness signifier. This paper revealed how human desires are converted to greed, analyzing those two signifiers. Also, the action caused by the collision of desire and the mechanism by which the exploitation of the ruler is justified was analyzed. Furthermore, by analyzing the three different endings of <Snail maiden>, it was found how the people’s aspirations and wishes affected the transmission process.

snail maiden, signifier, taboo, the powerful man’s taking someone’s wife away, marriage of different being, folklore, lack