본문 바로가기
  • Home

The Relationship between Sexuality and Virtue(德) in <Sexually combining with a Dead Woman>

  • The Research of the Korean Classic
  • 2021, (54), pp.105-131
  • DOI : 10.20516/classic.2021.54.105
  • Publisher : The Research Of The Korean Classic
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature > Korean Literature > Korean classic prose
  • Received : July 26, 2021
  • Accepted : August 11, 2021
  • Published : August 31, 2021

Chung Kyungmin 1

1한국산업기술대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examined the way sexuality of women and men worked in <Sexually Combining with a Dead Woman>, a story of a man who sleeps with a deceased woman. With an emphasis on gender, this study examined how the act of pursuing sexual desire by living men with dead women is being semanticized in narratives, and analyzed the aspect of social acceptance and reorganization of sexuality. In the story of <Sexually Combining with a Dead Woman>, the corpse of a woman is a seductive body, and the sexual desire and sleep pattern of a man are supposed to be a response to temptation. In addition, the time in oral narratives was accepted as a kind act of a man who prevented a woman from becoming a spirit. It showed the character of a story of grace, which relieves all the deficiencies of men with the help of a virgin and her parents. On the other hand, male characters in the were able to achieve personal maturity by confirming the situation that all the family members, including the women, died after the relationship with women. Although the body was not recovered, they became socially mature by conducting the funeral rites and offerings. The tales of <Sexually Combining with a Dead Woman> reveal the aspects of men and women interacting and influencing each other through sexual unions, through the existence of life and death. The story acknowledged sexuality as an innate human desire but highlighted the inequality of androcentrism.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.