A Structural Typology of the Legends from the East and the West

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

This study fairly analyzes the structure of the Philippine and American legends in the light of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of Folktale. It focuses primarily on the structure of legends and furthers its investigation to bring about the influence of culture on the structure of its corresponding literature.

METHODS

It examined 18 Philippine and 11 American legends through Morphology of Folktale plotted in four different manually developed matrices. In the two initial matrices, the Philippine and American legends were separately fragmented into relevant narrative events regardless of Propp's morphemes. Then, a matrix of Propp's narrative functions, considered as the final matrix, with the description of each function was created and duplicated. The final matrices were filled in with the narrative events from the initial ones that matched the description of the narrative functions in Propp's. After the final matrices were accomplished, the recurring narrative functions in both Philippine and American legends in the light of Propp's morphology were identified and noted.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that there are recurring patterns in both Philippine and American legends inside and outside the working framework. The universal features of heroic tales take account to the similarities in their narrative functions. Their respective culture, on the other hand, explains their significant differences such as their variations on leaving on a mission versus absentation, battles, heroes' triumphs and resurrection. It provided a more profound explanation that the universal features could no longer elucidate for it is their way of life, beliefs, ideals, morals and practices speaking in their legends.

DISCUSSIONS

Philippines is an archipelago with rich and varied culture and ethnic groups. The variation of the ethnic groups comes with the variation of their folklore. However, most of these tales remain untold. This instance makes the interpretation of the Philippine legends, drawing from Gray's (1999) assertion, tentative. The present study only analyzed the available legends at large. Hence, the interpretations may be strengthened by the availability of other studies on the interpretation of these varied literature or an anthology of the unexamined literature.