Mothers Are Not Obtainable with Magic: The Uncanny and the Construction of Orphan Children's Desires in Yim Pil-Sung's Hansel and Gretel

Abstract

Employing the main motifs of the Grimms' version, Yim Pil-Sung's Hansel and Gretel explores the trauma that three orphans suffered in their experiences at an orphanage. The orphans' circumstances represent the symbolic dimensions of desertion, isolation and deprivation, while the children are also provided with extraordinary magic power. This dual construction of the orphans' situation generates the uncanny, which reveals something hidden underneath what is seen on the surface. What is buried is the trauma of abandonment and violence, and the 'Happy Children's Home' in the forest is where all the main characters face their traumatic past. The uncanny is also created by the children's surprising and thus disturbing power, which subverts the normal and familiar reality by which adults usually hold power over children. The children's power is ironic, in that it is unlimited to satisfy their material deprivation, yet so powerless and limited in that it cannot provide them with their ultimate need-parental love. While this film seems to construct the orphans' absolute need of parental love and the damage to their personalities without it, it is also a thought-provoking metaphor about the long journey of recovery from repressed childhood trauma.