<구렁덩덩 신선비>와 <두꺼비 신랑> 속 ‘허물’과 ‘아내 고행’의 의미 ― 동물 토템에서 기인한 가부장제로의 이행을 중심으로 ―

Abstract

The long relationship between animals and humans is one of the topics that are often treated in oral folktales. The monsters in the narrative are generally animals, and foreign body marriage is a narrative dealing with marriage between animals and humans. The male spouse is a foreign object, or animal, in <Gureongdeongdeong Sinseonbi> and ‘Toad Bridegroom’. This is a story of an animal groom and a human bridegroom’s meeting and becoming a couple. The two narratives deal with marriage between man and animal side by side and have a similar narrative structure. A parent or old woman, who is difficult to have children, gets a snake son or a toad son, and marries the youngest of the three daughters in the neighbor's house. On the first night, the animal groom takes off his skin and becomes a handsome man, asks his wife to keep his skin exuviae, and leaves far away. When the exuviae is burnt due to the interference of the older sisters, the burning smell reaches the bridegroom and the groom happens to meet a new bridegroom. The wife leaves for her husband, suffers adversities, and eventually the two wives compete, and the original wife reunites with the husband who left the house. The structure up to this point is the same for both narratives, but there is a difference in the case of <Toad Bridegroom>, the animal groom undergoes a test from his wife's family. Both stories have the typical structures of folktales intact. The typical structures are that animals talk and people do not surprise at them. The worlds of the sacred and the profane lie together and intersect in the flat narrative world. In folklore, the snakes and toads capture the traces of ancient animal totems, and the process of transformation and marriage captures the traces of folk myths. The two narratives narratively reveal the transition from the motherhood system to the patriarchal system in that the narrative space moves from the wife's family to the husband's family and the wife's position is approved through the husband's examination process. The “exuviae” is read as a symbol of the renunciation of divine nature, and the wife's asceticism symbolizes the worship of animal totems. The approval process of the toad bridegroom's wife is used as a stage to show off the extraordinary ability of a foreign body as a kind of variant. This indicates that animal totems are in a superior position rather than being inferior to humans, which is a “godliness”. The two folktales pass on totems, traces of the folk deity, and the learning of patriarchy through the husband's “exuviae” and the wife's “penance.”