Sources of Conflict: A Comparative Synthesis of American and Korean Parricides

Abstract

Despite the nominative classification of parricides based on the victim–offender relationship, parricide bears the offense characteristics of many crimes. In prior works, the killing of parents has been framed as a violent reaction of severely abused children against their tormentors, or as the identity demarcating actions of adult sons suffering from mental illness. Aside from these two primary discourses, the reasons parents and their offspring become mired in conflicts across various life stages of both participants have been neglected from the literature. A more recent theoretical framework examines parricides and their sources of conflict across the life course of the victims and offenders. This paper synthesizes the sources of conflict in parricides in nineteen-century America and twentiethcentury South Korea by comparing the similarities and differences in offense characteristics. I argue that parricides in the two countries can be differentiated based on the differences in history and culture.