Sang Kancil as cultural artefact: a comparative neo-archetypal study
This article is a comparative study of Sang Kancil, the Malaysian folkloric trickster character with Brer Rabbit (African-American) and Reynard the Fox (French and Dutch) in order to explain the relationship between the Jungian archetypes and Neo-archetypes that may be found in trickster tales fo...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2019
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14107/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14107/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/14107/1/33069-114233-1-PB.pdf |
| Summary: | This article is a comparative study of Sang Kancil, the Malaysian folkloric trickster character
with Brer Rabbit (African-American) and Reynard the Fox (French and Dutch) in order to
explain the relationship between the Jungian archetypes and Neo-archetypes that may be found
in trickster tales found in the printed medium. An analysis of the Sang Kancil stories was
conducted by comparing them to these Trickster stories from other cultures to identify the
similarities in the trope of the trickster to determine the ways in which Trickster tales have been
used to convey messages of resistance against injustice and impart moral lessons, as well as
pointing out the importance of intelligence and wit to solve problems. To limit the corpus due to
the countless different Trickster tales around the world, we have only used these two animal
tricksters who are the most congruent with Sang Kancil. Following from this, the article
examines the commonalities in the neo-archetypal elements present in all of the studied tale
types which correspond to the ways in which these tricksters are Andersonian cultural artefacts
in the cultural imaginary, disseminated through both oral and print mediums. This is due to the
well-documented and widespread sources of print literature on both Brer Rabbit and Reynard the
Fox. By studying the commonalities of the tales through the archetypal elements present, Sang
Kancil may be determined to be an Andersonian cultural artefact in the cultural imagination. |
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