A Comparative Study: The Folktale of Jaka Tarub (Indonesia) and Tanabata (Japan)

Abstract

A folktale owned by one country can also be found in another country with either the same theme or motive. As there is numerous folktale around the world, it turns out that folktales from Indonesia have many similarities to folktales from Japan, one of which is Jaka Tarub folktale from Central Java and Tanabata folktale from Japan. This research aimed to discover the similarities and differences of the story structure and cultural element of the two folktales. In analyzing, the researcher employed three approaches, namely Greimas narratology structuralism approach to analyzing the story structure, cultural approach to analyze the cultural element and comparative literature approach. The result of this study indicated that there was both similarities and differences of story structure and cultural element. However, both Jaka Tarub and Tanabata did not influence each other as they represented their own characteristics which were descriptions of the society where they came from.