As the archetype of the healer, the shamanic of : “Chilsung” in the Baridegi, Hwang Seok-young’s novel
HyungJung Koo
The Research of the Korean Classic February 28, 2025 DOI: 10.20516/classic.2025.68.5 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Key points | Argues that in Hwang Seok-young's novel Baridegi, the puppy Chilsung represents the protagonist Bari's wounded "inner child" in Jung's sense, and that Bari heals her wound of being "abandoned" through this relationship, becoming a "wounded healer" in Nouwen's sense. The paper contends that Chilsung's friendly, cheerful depiction, contrasted with the grandmother's more distant care, reflects the author's intention to present painful themes more brightly than the shamanic myth does. |
Abstract
This paper analyzes the original form of a healer, focusing on the relationship between Bari and Chilsung in Hwang Seok-young’s novel Baridegi, which modernly recreates Baridegi, and suggests what a meaningful wounded healer should be like even today, when healing and healing are becoming a hot topic. In the novel Baridegi, a character named Chilsung appears, embodied in the form of a puppy, a human-friendly and cute animal. In this article, Chilsung sees the character as Bari’s wounded “inner child” and intensively analyzes how the wounded “inner child” in Bari is transforming into a phenomenal “inner child” through the process of internal maturity and integration. The reason why we paid attention to the relationship between Bari and Chilsung in this paper is that the protagonist of Hwang Seok-young’s novel 『Baridegi』, including the shamanic of , is a character with a wound called “abandoned”, and Bari, the protagonist in the story, is effectively healing these wounds and being reborn as a wounded healer. Abandoned right after birth can also be seen as a great “hurt” in which existence itself is denied, and Bari is not buried in these wounds from birth, but rather, heals himself through interaction with the existence of Chilsung and is showing great achievement in being reborn as a true healer expressed in the form of a grandmother. In order to effectively analyze the process of changing the interaction between Bari and Chilsung to the appearance of a grandmother, who is a true healer, in this paper, Henri Nouwen used the concept of a “wounded healer” presented in his book The of Wounded healer. And the concept of “inner child” proposed by Karl Gustav Jung was substituted into the Chilsung character and analyzed. Through the interaction with Chilsung, which can also be seen as Bari’s “inner child,” the process of Bari being reborn as a “wounded healer” by looking at his wounds objectively and healing them was analyzed using the above concepts. In addition, the difference between the grandmother character and the Chilsung character, two important characters in the process of the wounded inner child being reborn as a wounded healer, was noted and analyzed. Chilsung is a dog raised by Bari and is a character with the same wounds as Bari’s ‘遺棄’. Chilsung is depicted as a character who familiarly interacts with Bari with a cute, bright and cheerful image. On the other hand, although the grandmother takes care of Bari, she did not give Bari unconditional love from the beginning. The grandmother helps Bari through direct words, but this grandmother’s appearance was seen as a somewhat distant and rigid relationship rather than the relationship between Chilsung and Bari. In this paper, it was analyzed that the Chilsung character emphasized in Hwang Seok-young’s novel 『Baridegi』 was the author’s intention to unravel the heavy theme consciousness of pain and difficulties in life more friendly and brighter than the shamanic of . These days, when healing and healing are emerging as keywords, shedding light on what a true healer’s prototype is like in classical literature works allows us to look into what a meaningful healer should look like even today. Furthermore, just as no one in the world has been born and lived unscathed, the enlightenment of the process of transforming the wounded into the existence of healing the other injured can also be seen as meaningful to the injured and those who are contemplating what to do with the healer.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on shamanism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayahuasca Shamanism in the Amazon and Beyond | 2014 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology | 2004 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California | 1998 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press | 2020 | Historical analysis | |
| Anthropology, Shamanism, and Alternate Ways of Knowing–Being in the World: One Anthropologist's Journey of Discovery and Transformation | 2010 | Reflective essay or personal narrative |