Psychosexual Development of Sun Wukong
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Degree Project Level: BA in Chinese Make a man out of a monkey: Psychosexual development of Sun Wukong Author: Besha Saied Supervisor: Hu Lung Lung Examiner: Billy Gray Subject/main field of study: Chinese Course code: KI2011 Credits: 15 Date of examination: At Dalarna University it is possible to publish the student thesis in full text in DiVA. The publishing is open access, which means the work will be freely accessible to read and download on the internet. This will significantly increase the dissemination and visibility of the student thesis. Open access is becoming the standard route for spreading scientific and academic information on the internet. Dalarna University recommends that both researchers as well as students publish their work open access. I give my/we give our consent for full text publishing (freely accessible on the internet, open access): Yes ☒ No ☐ Dalarna University – SE-791 88 Falun – Phone +4623-77 80 00 摘要: 西游记是明代吴承恩所攥写的。西游记的主角是孙悟空。孙悟空出生时,具有超自然 力量,但是一直很叛逆。因为孙悟空对天堂犯了大错,所以他受到惩罚,他必须帮助 玄奘去印度取经回中国。整个旅程中,孙悟空和朝圣者经历八十一场灾难,也让孙悟 空变成了一个更好的人。这篇论文应用西格蒙德·弗洛伊德的性心理發展分析为什么 孙悟空在朝圣中,行为和性格变的更好。孙悟空在生命的早期阶段发展了固着,通过 一直吃达到自我享乐。之后,孙悟空找到了他的阳具,如意金箍棒,孙悟空一直用如 意金箍棒试图征服。孙悟空也开始仿效他的父亲形象,玉皇大帝。因为孙悟空违反玉 皇大帝的法律,玉皇大帝试图处决孙悟空,但是失败了。所以,孙悟空认为强的人是 高于法律的。然而只有佛陀能给孙悟空惩罚,把孙悟空放在五阶山下。孙悟空在五阶 山下五百年以后,观音委任孙悟空保护玄奘去印度取经。孙悟空在玄奘身上找到了一 位父亲形象,在观音身上找到了一位母亲形象。孙悟空模仿玄奘不使用他的阳具,如 意金箍棒试图征服。反而,孙悟空用如意金箍棒做好事,不伤人。 关键字:孙悟空,西游记,西格蒙德·弗洛伊德,精神分析学,性心理发展。 Abstract: The Journey to the West is written by Wu Cheng'en,1505-1580 A.D., during the Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644 A.D. The protagonist in The Journey to the West is named Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong is born with supernatural powers and is always up to no good. As punishment for his crimes against the Heaven, Sun Wukong must take a journey to India to help the monk Tripitaka, in order to retrieve Buddhist scriptures back to China. Throughout the journey Sun Wukong and the pilgrims will go through eighty- one calamities. The pilgrimage transforms Sun Wukong into becoming a better man. This paper applies Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual development to Sun Wukong to understand his actions and personality and why it changes for the better during The Journey to the West. Sun Wukong develops a fixation to always pleasure himself through eating in the early stages of his life. Later Sun Wukong finds his phallus, the Golden Rod, to conquer, imitating his first father figure, the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor tries to execute Sun Wukong for disobeying his laws, but fails. Therefore, Sun Wukong believes that strong people are above the law. The only one that is strong enough to punish him is Buddha by putting Sun Wukong under the Five- Phase Mountain. After five hundred years under the mountain, Sun Wukong is assigned by Guanyin to protect Tripitaka during the pilgrimage. Sun Wukong finds a father figure in Tripitaka and a mother figure in Guanyin. Sun Wukong imitates Tripitaka’s kind nature by not using his phallus, the Golden Rod, to conquer. Instead Sun Wukong uses the Golden Rod to do good merits and not hurt humans. Keywords: Sun Wukong, The Journey to the West, Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis, Psychosexual Development. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2: Literature Review ................................................................................ 7 Chapter 3: Psychosexual development ................................................................ 10 Chapter 4: Analysis ............................................................................................. 13 4.1. Oral Stage ...................................................................................................................... 13 4.2. Anal Stage ...................................................................................................................... 15 4.3. Phallic Stage .................................................................................................................. 16 4.4. Latency Period ............................................................................................................... 17 4.5. Genital Stage .................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter 5: Conclusion ......................................................................................... 20 Works Cited ......................................................................................................... 22 Saied 5 Chapter 1: Introduction The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng-En of Huai-an, in Jiangsu. Waley wrote, Wu Cheng-en seems to have lived between 1505-1580 A.D (7). The story is based on a real person, Xuan Zang’s pilgrimage to India in the 7th century A.D. to recover Buddhist scriptures and bring them back to China (Waley 7-8). The story is one hundred chapters long and is divided into three main parts: The story of the monkey (Ch. 1-7), The story of Xuan Zang and the origin to the pilgrimage to India (Ch. 8-12), The pilgrimage to India (Ch. 13- 100) (Hu Shih 4). This research paper will analyze Anthony C. Yu’s full version translation of The Journey to the West. The main protagonist of The Journey to the West is Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong is mysteriously born from a stone egg on top of the Flower-Fruit Mountain. Being born with supernatural powers, Sun Wukong gains the trust of the other monkeys and turns into their king. One-day, Sun Wukong starts fearing his own death and goes on a journey to learn about immortality from a Taoist patriarch named Subodhi. Subodhi accepts Sun Wukong as his student and teaches Sun Wukong the way to become immortal and gives him the name Sun Wukong, Aware of Vacuity. After Sun Wukong shows off his skills in front of Subodhi’s students, Subodhi orders Sun Wukong to leave and go back to the Flower- Fruit Mountain. Sun Wukong believes a man of his power needs to have a weapon, therefore visits the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas, where he acquires the Golden Rod. Sun Wukong keeps causing problems on Earth, this leads to Sun Wukong being reported to the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor sends some of his Celestial soldiers for the capturing of Sun Wukong, but ends up failing. To not waste more resources, the Jade Emperor gives Sun Wukong a low position in Heaven. Sun Wukong is not satisfied with the position and therefore ends up creating havoc in Heaven. The Jade Emperor tries to stop more damage from occurring and therefore gives Sun Wukong the duty to take care of the Garden of Immortal Peaches. Sun Wukong still does not follow his duties and starts eating up the rarest Saied 6 peaches, stealing Laozi’s elixir and drinking the Jade Emperor’s royal wine. This time the Jade Emperor sends out Erlang and his brothers and ends up capturing Sun Wukong and orders him to be executed. The execution fails and Sun Wukong escapes. The Jade Emperor then asks Buddha for help. Buddha gives Sun Wukong a bet that he cannot leave his palm, Sun Wukong accepts the bet and somersaults away from his palm as far as possible, until only seeing five pillars. He believes that the five pillars represent the end of Heaven. To prove that he has reached the end, he marks the pillars with his urine. Later Sun Wukong finds out the pillars represent Buddha’s fingers. Before Sun Wukong can escape, Buddha turns his hands into a mountain, which imprisons Sun Wukong for 500 years, until he will accompany Tripitaka and the other two disciples, Eight Rules and Sha Monk to the journey to the west in order to acquire Buddhist scriptures. Together they undergo eighty-one ordeals before reaching the Thunderclap monastery, where they acquire the Buddhist scriptures from Tathagata. In the past, many literary critics have applied archetypal criticism on the protagonist of The Journey to the West, Sun Wukong. His personality and behavior have been justified by blaming his nature, that he represents a trickster or a naughty boy that exists in the collective unconsciousness of all human beings. This paper argues that Sun Wukong’s choices in life reflects his upbringing and not his nature. Therefore, this paper will apply psychosexual theories regarding Sun Wukong’s development, because compared to psychologists during Sigmund Freud’s time, Sigmund Freud believed that early childhood experiences form our personality and behavior in adulthood. Through The Journey to the West, Sun Wukong grows from a misbehaving monkey into an enlightened man. Therefore, by applying Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stages to the fictional character Sun Wukong, this paper will reveal, why Sun Wukong transforms from a misbehaving monkey into an enlightened man. Saied 7 Chapter 2: Literature Review Previous studies have not been found to apply Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical concept or specifically the concept of psychosexual development to Sun Wukong. Other research papers have applied archetypal criticism to Sun Wukong to understand Sun Wukong’s personality and the causes for his actions. The three research papers that this paper will review are by K. Zhang, Lou and Y. Zhang. These papers apply Carl Jung’s, Northrop Frye’s or Joseph Campbell’s Archetypal literary criticism to Sun Wukong. This paper will look at how these research papers analyze the relationships between Sun Wukong and the other characters with the environment. This paper will also look at how these three papers characterize Sun Wukong’s personality, the causes of his actions and the motivation for joining the pilgrimage. In