KJCKorea
Journal Central

Sex is not simple physical pleasure, but very important human behaviour psycho-physiologically. It is already discussed in psychology and psychoanalysis, that libido, intrinsic energy of sex, forms various mental mechanism such as ego, superego, unconsciousness, shadow, persona, etc. They still provide important clues about elucidating human-beings. In <Forest Fire>, Jeom-rye and Sa-wol are characters revealing self-preservation and self-love(narcissism) in her husband’s absence, and yet their behavior patterns are quite dissimilar. While Jeom-rye shows the type of obsessive libido, Sa-wol is the case of sexual libido. That’s because they have different ideas on environment and sex. As for Ong-nyeo in <The Blue Tile-Roofed House>, she also has a desire for eros in her husband’s absence. After only a momentary pleasure from having got a lover, she has a death instinct(thanatos) when the lover is arrested. Her expectation for eros is frustrated so extremely that the erotic desire is transformed into a self-defeating drive. On the other hand, Yun Byeong-hee in <The Rose Castle> makes a self-confined situation by keeping herself isolated. In psychopathology, it’s a desire to return to the maternal womb, namely, desire for regression to childhood. She is self-confined to the Rose Castle. However, her sexual instinct is presented as a deviation in sexual objects by replacing it with a perverse way via two male dogs and the private tutor to her daughter. That is to say, she is under the control of her persona, the false ego.

eros, self-love, the sex instinct, thanatos, libido, desire of regression, persona