니진스키의 <목신의 오후>에 나타난 나르시시즘

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to re-illuminate Vaslav Nijinsky’s Afternoon of the Faun from the perspective of narcissism and to examine his life and work. Sigmund Freud’s study on narcissism distinguished primary narcissism, which is ego-centered narcissistic love, and secondary narcissism, which is retracted from object love. Homosexuality is the latter case, and falls under the narcissistic type of object choice from identification with the mother or consideration of oneself as a model. Nijinsky showed a narcissistic type by having a sense of loss for his father and a strong attachment to his mother in his childhood, and his fantasies about masturbation may have taken him to his homosexual tendencies. This latter is presumed to be connected to the final scene of Afternoon of the Faun, which reveals the allusion to homosexuality, a secondary narcissism that returns from the frustration of object love to narcissistic love. This study on narcissism is meaningful in that it can explain to some extent the influence and aftermath of this work on various choreographers and works that allow homosexual expression and challenge taboos.