This study analyzes the characteristics of the stories of 29 sea-related tales selected from The Comprehensive Collection of Korean Folklore. The purpose of this study is to examine the ecological awareness of the narrative community. Due to the chara...
This study analyzes the characteristics of the stories of 29 sea-related tales selected from The Comprehensive Collection of Korean Folklore. The purpose of this study is to examine the ecological awareness of the narrative community. Due to the characteristics of tales transmitted orally, sea tales vividly contain the transmission group's perception of the sea and the community attitude toward the sea. Twenty-nine tales have different descriptions of the sea space and conflict situations, but the aspects of the stories can be classified into six themes based on similar motifs. As a result of the discussion, it was possible to confirm ecological lessons and messages in the narrative imagination of the sea.
The sea space in the tale is a place that holds a sense of mystery that humans cannot bear to fathom. In the thoughts of humans imagining the sea, we can find clues to their attitude towards nature and ecological awareness to understand the order of nature. The motif that accounts for the largest number of stories in searelated tales is about the creation of the sea. From where a lot of water flowed in to create the space called the sea, we can guess the background of the creation of sea-related tales from human curiosity about the sea. In addition, the type and characteristics of stories were examined with six themes: the story of the disappearing sea, the story of getting rich at sea, the story of seeing a dead body in the sea, and the superstition about maritime activities.
As for the ecological thought embedded in the story of the sea, first, it is to perceive the world as a monism. In the story of the creation and extinction of the sea, the sea and the land are not separated, and the boundary between humans and nature living in it also forms an organic worldview. Next, the tale of the sea tells of a way for humans to adapt to the order of nature as the ecological thinking that values all life equally is represented as a taboo on eating meat. This study's attempt to read ecological thinking in folktales is meaningful in that it presents a practical discourse to overcome the ecological crisis..