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A study on narratives about women defeating monsters in oral transmission: Siberia Kubaiko, China Liji, and Korea Toad and Maiden

  • Journal of Korean Literature
  • 2021, (44), pp.201-234
  • DOI : 10.52723/JKL.44.201
  • Publisher : The Society Of Korean Literature
  • Research Area : Humanities > Korean Language and Literature
  • Received : September 30, 2021
  • Accepted : November 10, 2021
  • Published : November 30, 2021

JUNHEE KIM 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This paper explores narratives about women defeating monsters, through the story of Siberia Tatar ‘Kubaiko’(Kubaiko for below), ‘Liji slays the snake’ from Fujian, China(Liji for below), and Korean ‘Toad and Maiden’(Toad for below). First of all, in Kubaiko, the main character Kubaiko revives his brother killed by the monster, through visiting the underworld as a guest, and she acquires superhuman abilities. In Liji, a girl, Liji is said to have entered the snake’s den with a sword and punished the snake which had demanded sacrifice till then. While in the two tales the female protagonists are clearly seen to overpower the monster, the maiden in Korean Toad appears as a sacrifice, who is relatively limited in free movement. However, the maiden was the only being that made the toad move, and played a role in making the monster public. Maiden is an ‘other’ excluded from the human community, and the community’s violence was another monster in this tale. However, the maiden and the toad, who are the others and outsiders to each other, cross the threshold and achieve temporary hospitality to fight off the monster. While the human community continued violence as a temporary measure excluding the weak, the maiden and the toad actively accept meeting with others. Their relationship was temporary and exclusive, but the people(human community) were able to be released from monster by relying on otherness they did not have. This otherness, the influence of ‘difference’ becomes the power to fight monsters in Toad. The maiden’s eradication the monster by allowing the other to move for her sake, shows an aspect of the ‘fighting ability’ that a female protagonist can have. Unlike Kubaiko and Liji, the Korean maiden was in danger of becoming a passive sacrifice without physical strength, but succeeded in saving herself and obtaining additional compensation by offsetting the disadvantage by meeting the others.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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