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Folktale Imagination toward ‘True Friendship’and ‘Communication with Others’
Journal of Korean Literature
2018,
(37), pp.235-279
Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
Research Area : Korean Language and Literature
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Focusing on discourses regarding ‘making friends’ and ‘communication with others’ reflected on Korean folktales handed down in literature and orally, this paper critically examined the folktale literary imagination and the traditional cultural consciousness about ‘making friends.’ Friendship in traditional society was created and encouraged in groups belonging to the same social status classes or factions in most cases, and the friendship pursued by the group members mainly aimed at the values and interests of the groups to which they belonged. The discourses on ‘making friends’ required the ethics of care as a condition to prove true friendship. The friendly relations between classical scholars belonging to the same faction had strong bonds comparable to blood relationships to the extent that classical scholars did not dispute on their own interests but cooperated toward common goals, thereby forming successful symbiotic relationships to harvest and distribute common fruits. However, in the process of realizing the compassion for friends as such, social justice was damaged sometimes. However, in the bureaucratic society of intellectuals, social justice and compassion for friends were harmoniously coordinated sometimes as the ethics of care to undeceive friends was realized. Meanwhile, a story of an elderly man who forgives and helps a cattle thief and encourages him to regret his fault and live rightly, showed a moving story of making new friends by harmoniously coordinating care ethics and justice ethics. The family egoism and the exclusiveness to others that have been handed down traditionally are pointed out as serious obstacles in modern society that aims at credit society, righteous fair society, global culture, and multi-cultural society. While reviewing the moral imagination that appeared in the discourse on ‘making friends’ in terms of ‘the ethics of care’, this author illuminated the ethics of ‘horizontal communication’ required in modern society. For happy future, we should aim at the shape of ‘open friendship’ to ‘make new friends’ while seeking for peaceful coexistence with the others. In this sense, universal love for mankind can also be understood as friendship in a broad sense because it is horizontal love for beings of equal value to oneself. Ecological thinking is also serious enlightenment to realize a universal friendship aimed at coexistence with all living things on the earth.
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