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KMID : 0385320170280040083
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Journal of Korean Psychoanalytic Society
2017 Volume.28 No. 4 p.83 ~ p.95
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Ego Defense Mechanisms in Aesop’s Fables
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Lee Byung-Wook
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Abstract
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Aesop was a famous fable and story-teller in ancient Greece, and his fables are still taught as moral lessons today. He is said tohave lived as a slave in Samos around 550 B.C. Unfortunately, he met with a violent death at the hands of the inhabitants of Delphi, but the precise and/or accurate cause of his death remains unknown. Aesop’s slave status in ancient Greece notwithstanding, he hada keen powers of observation, sensitivity and the linguistic and intellectual ability to convey what he knew in terms of pertinent socialcriticism. We surmise that this ability was developed from his hard life experience and fine-tuned by his intellect, but his moralsense seemed to have been very conservative. I would, in this regard, like to emphasize the many and various ego defense mechanismsincorporated into his famous fables. As a matter of course, Aesop knew nothing about the psychoanalytic concepts (includingentities such as the unconscious and ego defense mechanisms), but we are able to empathize with the tales conveyed by his fablesbecause many of the essential, underlying messages in his stories are every bit as applicable to life today as they were in ancientGreece. Many of Aesop’s fables are so analogous to our present and often contradictory life experience, it sometimes seems as ifeach of his fables he neatly and correctly tweezed a thorn out of the finger of humanity. We have (anecdotally) confirm that humanego defense mechanisms have been in full operation without change for several thousands of years.
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KEYWORD
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Aesop, Fables, Defense mechanism
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