Articles

Tiger as a symbol in the Indonesian novel “Man-tiger” by Eka Kurniawan (2004)

Vostok/Oriens '2017, №4

DOI: 10.7868/S0869190817040070

 
The paper deals with the outstanding novel “Man-tiger” by Indonesian writer Eka Kurniawan (born in 1975) from the prospective of its many-sided main symbol. The image of the were-tiger roots deeply in the archaic Indonesian folklore and has many connotations due to its ancient animistic, medieval Sufistic and modern psychoanalytical views. The article offers an analysis of the very tiger-archetype in the novel with consideration of variety of the traditional and modern perceptions of the symbolical tiger-image: the totem, the familiar of the shaman, the were-tiger, the ghost-tiger, the wreath, the Sufistic nafs al-ammara, and last but not least, the archetype of the chaos-manifestation in the modern Indonesian mentality. Eka Kurniawan managed to create the versatile image based both on mass-culture (the typical “horror story” were-tiger) and on ancient mythological models that lead to the better understanding of the deeper under-level of the human mind.

Keywords: Eka Kurniawan, “Man-tiger”, modern Indonesian literature, Jung, archetype

Pages: С. 67–76