Exploring the notion of identity in the music of G-Dragon using psychoanalysis

• Main Author: Lim, Sarah Elizabeth
• Other Authors: Lee Hyun Jung
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/62770
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Korean singer-songwriter Kwon Jiyong is a member of the Korean pop boy band Big Bang and goes by his stage name G-Dragon. As the term “stage name” suggests, G-Dragon is a constructed self-image that Kwon has created to represent himself on stage. G- is a rhyme of his name prefix Ji- and Dragon is the English translation of his name suffix –Yong. Although Kwon created G-Dragon at the age of thirteen to represent himself on stage, Kwon never ceases to continue constructing G-Dragon through his songs. In his songs, he discusses the perception that the public has of him while trying to establish his self-representation over the public’s presumed image. As we examine Kwon’s autobiography like songs in this essay, I will first demonstrate Jacques Lacan’s theory that the individual is always stuck in the state of identification and never arrives at his intended identity explains Kwon’s need to transfigure into a desired G-Dragon image. Although Kwon tries in his songs to create his ideal G-Dragon identity for the public’s reception, his identity fails to be constructed corporeally to represent himself. So he enters into the process of identification where he establishes his dream as his self-image and compels his audience to perceive his dream as the identity that he is aspiring towards. After that, I will expound on how Kwon fails to display his identification to the public and fails to flaunt his self-image. As lyrical prose, Kwon’s personal stories share a resounding theme of misconception about his identity, in which his personal self-image comes under attack from public opinion even as he tries to reject that public image. However, his responses towards the public misconception differ through the songs as he tries to repudiate the misconceived images. With each new song to represent himself, he moves from rejecting the public image to assuming that image in an effort to subvert the public’s imposition on his self-image. His subversion recognizes the nature of an individual’s identity to possess many versions of the self, and refutes the need for an actual self-image as he realizes the inability to present the abstract self-image to the public.