Folktales are traditional legends that exist among people that constitute their oral tradition. These tales are passed by word of mouth from one generation to another, and often build their existence around superstitions and imaginations. Folktales play an essential role in the society, one of them being, identity for a given community, passing on the cultural beliefs of a given population, among others. This essay will revolve around comparing and contrasting two folktales from different non-Western countries through worldview and lens perspective and how technological changes affected multicultural issues and worldviews. Contextually, the paper focuses on the discussion on the African folktale, "Why the sun and the moon live in the sky," and the Indian folktale, "Pride goeth before a fall."
Direct communication is the relaying of opinions and thoughts clearly within their verbal messages, while indirect contact involves using means other than spoken words to gather information from the communicator (Jackson, 2013). In the African folktale, the narrator has adopted a direct method of communication to unveil the message, unlike the Indian folktale. It is evident that the narrator in the African tale uses both direct and narrated speech all through. For example, the use of the directly quoted statement of the sun, "Yes tell my friend to come in," and some of the water's questions like, "Do you want more of my people to come?" The evidence of the continuous conversation between the sun, moon, and water helps the reader understand the plot and message of the folklore from quoted statements. It is unlike the Indian folklore, which capitalized on describing the situation that the characters within the folk are in rather than telling us directly. The narrator describes the lack of swords of the ten merchants as a way to keep us thinking and judging about the situation at hand, which turns out to be the vulnerability that the ten merchants were experiencing. Their captors (robbers) were armed with swords, an indication that they were advantaged over the merchants. Besides, the lesson learned from the Indian folklore is symbolically hidden behind the amusing revelations that the merchants had during their adventure.
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Racial and ethnic communication patterns are citable instances where a reader can identify the ethnic group or particular race that a given message targets. From scrutinizing the two tales, the African folklore exhibits no ethnic or racial attachments while the Indian folklore does. The African story focusses on a natural phenomenon without quoting any native statements or highlighting any color preferences in its address. On the other hand, the Indian tale has included the words, "Ta, tai, tom, tadingana," as a secret phrase used to disguise the merchants' perspective action against the robbers. It is a secret language that only they knew, which I believe has an Indian origin. Also, the mention of the currency rupees is a clear indication that this folklore has Indian origin because this is the country that rupees are used as the monetary medium of exchange.
If we are to consider the age of storytellers in the folklore field, there will be a significant difference between the patterns that each of these narrators uses. Contextually, the African folklore seems to have been narrated by a young storyteller, while an elderly narrator may have told the Indian tale. Most young narrators are deficient of experience in the field of storytelling thus will often deliver the ideas within folklore flatly without spicing it up with any storytelling additive like humor. For example, the African folklore is expressed directly with conversations between the sun, moon, and water very precisely. Somehow, it sounds monotonous and boring to listen to such a tale because there is no thrill to steal away the reader's attention. The Indian folklore is well-nourished with exhilarating moments, for example, when the narrator includes a song in the narration. The listeners can join into singing if they are familiar with the song with exhibits a successful storytelling session because if it involves the audience as a part of the art (Clavel, 2013).
The voice of the narrator in folklore often exhibits his/her perception toward gender based on the characters he/she chooses to use. A gender-biased narrator will often use the same gender all through, while a gender-sensitive narrator will try to include both genders in his/her work (Gender and Folklore, 2015). The narrator in the African folklore is gender-sensitive in his/her communication because he/she uses both sun and moon, with the latter being a wife to the former who is consulted by the husband before deciding to build a house to accommodate water's friends. The Indian folklore, on the other hand, omits the female gender in its plot because we only see male merchants and robbers building the body from the beginning to the end, thus making the readers conclude that he/she is gender-based.
Technological advancements have, in a big way, affected multicultural issues both positively and negatively (Combi, 2016). Digital technology, for example, has enhanced proximity and cohesiveness among people making it easy to redefine different cultural practices, customize them into acceptable formats and release to the world on the web. In return, the world has benefitted from understanding different cultural traditions and appreciating their existence too. Unfortunately, this sharing of cultural perspectives has brought about malicious impacts back to society. Some ill-motivated people have decided to take advantage of the global village thing by editing cultural records of different communities across the planet. Reason based on them, this misinformation spreads all over, creating a wrong impression of different cultures, which often interfere with the authenticity and acceptability of some cultural practices.
References
Combi, M., 2016. Cultures and Technology: An Analysis of Some Of The Changes In Progress— Digital, Global, And Local Culture .
Jackson, W., 2016. Direct Vs. Indirect Communication . Available at: <https://wjackson7.wordpress.com/2013/10/12/direct-vs-indirect-communication/
