Abstract
This article analyzes comparatively Chungjoon Lee's novel Chukje and Kwontaek Lim's film Chukje, and studies aspects of communication between two genres, the adaptation of traditional dramatic performances to modern epic styles, and traditional values embodied in the discourse which is formed in the communicative structure between the novel and the film. The common story unfolds by the coexistence and the mutual infiltration of three story lines. The story line following the funeral ceremony, the story line of a fairy tale, and story line of the carnivalesque. The story line of the funeral ceremony is about the whole process of attending funeral rites, by writer Lee, Jun-sub who hears about his old mother's death, goes down to his hometown and goes through the funeral procedures. The story line of a fairy tale is on realizing the old mother's belief of life and rebirth imagined. The story line of the carnivalesque is on the tumult caused by the disordered behavior of the people attending the funeral, and the amplification and dissolution of their conflict. The three story lines unite into one big flow and form the plot of Chukje. The three story lines merge into one in the memorial picture taking sequence, which is the vanishing point of perspective representation. Chukje's plot is a formality replacing an old woman's life completed and liberated by death with the lives of the old mother's descendants, and also the transfer process in attending the soul as a family god, in other words, making a traditional play with the god acceptance ceremony. That is to say that the novel and film Chukje is a narrative form that represents a funeral ceremony with traditional dramatic esthetics. The protagonist of the novel and film makes his little daughter understand her grandmother's reincarnation and existence on a different level, and is the mastermind in realizing the funeral into a god acceptance ceremony. The fairy tale replacing the place of the deceased or the god acceptance ceremony transcending life and death, is the festival of visual and linguistic existence on the immorality of the mother character which the writer is trying to realize through writing. The character of the mother carries on with a sameness of redemption to both Jun-sub and her granddaughter. In this sameness, past, present, and future times are eternally present. A funeral ceremony is used as a traditional performing art such as a Madanggeuk play, and a traditional ideology such as filial piety is one of the main subjectmatters. They are all successfully adapted into modern genres such as novel literature and film. The discourse in the communicative structure, where an immortal image of maternity is created, opens up new possibilities in Korean narratology.
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