'Desiring types of the unfulfilled-wish-stories' are representative oral stories. They interpret the conflict between the individual want and the limitations imposed by the outer world and thereby provide room for social discourse from the standpoint ...
'Desiring types of the unfulfilled-wish-stories' are representative oral stories. They interpret the conflict between the individual want and the limitations imposed by the outer world and thereby provide room for social discourse from the standpoint of the people. This paper examines the formation and change phases of the stories of 'desiring types' within the oral tradition and follow how the meaning was being formed. The stories dealing with the expectations and limitations of love show the following characteristics as they come down to later phases.
1. limitations become more apparent as the subjects become aware of their want more specificly.
2. The conflicts between the want and limitations form structures and categories.
3. The story of 'unfulfilled wish' as a method for expressing the frustrated want is within epic tradition.
4. The unfulfilled wishes' are told in terms of those of the lower class people.
Two of the main factors causing the conflict in the stories are "class limitation" and "the way the wishes are expressed". These factors change and are specified throughout the history. They are integrated and form another type of oral stories dealing with new issues and problems in late Chosun era. The story of the love-sick serpent dealing with many facets of problems represents excellently the popular awareness on historical lity of the time.
'The unfulfilled-wish-stories' became a customary method to represent specific conditions of people whose level of awareness on reality was raised to match the social change of the time. The people who had existed marginally before was not free from the call for self-awareness in the changing society. The findings of this study will provide a basis to investigate how the people constructed their discourse in the form of unfulfilled-wish-stories' in further studies.