《금병매(金甁梅)》의 반금련(潘金蓮) 정체성에 대한 자기심리학적 고찰

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the narcissistic identity of Pan Jinlian in the late Ming dynasty novel Jin Ping Mei from the perspective of Heinz Kohut’s (1913-1981) self-psychology. Previous studies have either negatively evaluated Pan Jinlian’s beauty, lasciviousness, and evil nature, or interpreted them as results of moral degradation and social oppression, overlooking the complex identity, inner deficiencies, desires, and psychological factors of Pan Jinlian. This paper views her identities as a beauty, lustful woman, and villainess as manifestations of pathological narcissistic personality and behavior, and aims to analyze the underlying deficiencies and desires from a self-psychological perspective. First, due to the failure of empathic relationship with her mother, Pan Jinlian failed to develop a cohesive self, and became fixated at the stage of grandiose self as she lost her sense of self through experiences of commodification in a materially-oriented culture. This creates fundamental defects in Pan Jinlian’s self-structure and becomes the point where her narcissistic personality is formed. Second, Pan Jinlian’s self-defect leads her to constantly seek men as sexual self-objects, and the repeated experience of narcissistic wounds results in perverse sex addiction and distorted sexual behavior. Her sexual behavior can be understood not as a simple manifestation of physical desire but as a pathological attempt to compensate for self-defects. Third, Pan Jinlian’s self-defect manifests as inner shame, which leads to narcissistic rage expressed through destructive attacks against the women of Ximen household. In particular, the cases of Song Huilian and Li Ping’er demonstrate how Pan Jinlian’s narcissistic rage evolves from simple jealousy into systematic and destructive attacks. This evidences how deep and pathological the fear and shame accumulated in her inner self were. This paper demonstrates that Pan Jinlian’s tragic death is not simply a result of individual evil acts or social oppression, but rather an inevitable tragic journey that a deficient self must experience. Just as the late Ming Mind-Heart Philosophy sought to accept human nature as it is, Pan Jinlian’s narcissism can be understood as an extreme manifestation of deficient nature. Furthermore, this paper is significant in that it presents a new methodology for systematically analyzing characters’ inner psychology and behavioral motivations by applying modern psychological theory to Chinese classical literature, while also offering new possibilities and perspectives in interpreting female characters.