A Study on the Symbolic Meanings of “Travel to a Different Underwater World” and “Fish Wife” in a Mongolian Oral Folktale－With a focus on The Young Man, The Dreamer－

Abstract

Folktales have long been transmitted, embodying the life issues and wishes of people in interesting symbols and reflecting the fundamental collective unconsciousness of the human mind. This study set out to investigate the inner world of the main character’s ego and examine his journey of finding his “self” deep in his unconsciousness in The Young Man, The Dreamer, which is a folktale whose storytelling unit is a dream. There is a young man made by the king to dream a dream for the king’s greater desire. One night, he dreams of becoming a king himself and is banished to a distant sea, where he saves a fish, travels a different world at the underwater palace of the Dragon King, and takes the fish as his wife, thus realizing his dream of becoming a king himself. Here, the man on a white horse that brings the young man to the underwater palace represents the inner “spirit”(Geist) of the main character that guides him. The underwater world represents his unconsciousness. The fish lady, who is the yellow dog brought from the underwater world, represents “anima,” which is the female character of his unconsciousness. The Dragon King at the underwater palace represents the archetypical image of his “self”. The king that puts the young man in hardship represents the “negative father image” inside the main character. Taboos or prohibited matters in this kind of tales have an attribute of being broken, which expands an event and prolongs time for the main character’s maturity while training the inside of the main character and assisting him with his complete self-growth. The narrative of this folktale shows the process of the dreaming young man living in a deficient mundane world opening up his unconsciousness through dreams and seas and tells a story of finding his anima and exploring his “self” as the transcendent center of his spirit.