상사뱀 설화로 본 남명의 남성성

Abstract

This study set out to investigate Nammyeong's masculinity according to his attitude toward women's desire and making a relation in four "tales of Nammyeong and the Sangsa Snake" in the series of oral literature. While the female characters regarded Nammyeong as an ideal man regardless of their social and marital status, Nammyeong had a free concept of sex. When he was young, however, he scolded a lady displaying her desire through caning and tried to teacher her the discipline and custom of nobility. This episode suggests that his sexual awareness made a shift from upright to broad-minded. When a person has his or her love rejected, he or she dies and becomes the Sangsa Snake. In stories of the Sangsa Snake, a character's desire is projected on the object. The prototypicality of the Sangsa Snake can be found in narrative shaman songs, in which one becomes the snake because he or she was discarded, driven away, or had his or her desire suppressed. In the tales of Nammyeong and the Sangsa Snake, the female characters have their desire blocked and become the Sangsa Snake. In this sense, the Sangsa Snake is the concentration of women's desire those days. In the process of helping these women vent their spite, Nammyeong undergoes "looking into," "fulfilling desire," "keeping her beside him" and "cultivating." His empathy lets the women satisfy their sexual desire with no limits. According to the classification of masculinity by R. W. Connell, Nammyeong's attitude of forming a relation with women's desire moved from hegemonic masculinity to complicit masculinity. Nammyeong had an upright idea of sex when he was young, and his idea of sex became flexible over the years, which indicates his masculinity was differentiated from hegemonic masculinity. His physical contacts were not direct and had some distance from women as he was affirmative of the Sangsa Snake's desire without expressing his sexual desire directly, which suggests his transition toward complicit masculinity. Being acceptive and affirmative of women's desire entirely, complicit men set no boundary in physical contacts and help women vent their resentment. Nammyeong, however, did not have their resentment vented. Historical facts tell that his failure was due to the intervention of his pupil Jeong In-hong with hegemonic masculinity, but the more direct reason was Nammyeong's attitude toward women's desire.