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초록

This study examines the folktale “The Brush Seller” to explore the conflicts and memory styles between oral and written cultures within a single linguistic community. It investigates how the authority of written culture asserts itself while oral culture becomes marginalized and highlights how oral folktales respond to the dominance of writing, thereby revealing how language becomes entangled with power. The analysis reveals that the naming of the “brush” as a “hair awl” reflects the sensory-intuitive nature of oral expression, while the villagers' practice of “ritual text reading” embodies a cognitive mode grounded in concrete experience. Furthermore, the clash between orthodox and local ritual texts in the courtroom scene demonstrates that the authority of written culture is not necessarily universal in all contexts. Although the tale adopts the guise of humor by ridiculing an ignorant group, it simultaneously exposes the tension between the authority of writing and the sensibility of orality, demonstrating that the transition to written culture was far from seamless. In sum, “The Brush Seller” acknowledges the dominance of written culture while simultaneously constructing a fictional memory that privileges orality. The folktale thus sheds light on the mechanisms of written power, the strategies of oral resistance, and the conflicts and tensions embedded in a cultural moment of transition. This study posits that the transition from oral to written culture should not be understood as a linear history of progress but as a complex process accompanied by conflict and negotiation.

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