Nolbu is featured on one of the most widely read Korean children's story of two brothers: "Hungbu and Nolbu." Nolbu's greed is represented in this story as a elder brother, who take advantage of his status in hierarchical order over his young brother Hungbu in taking possessions after his father passed away. The story is loosely formatted as it had been transcribed orally for generations. The story starts off tersely describing the environment in which they grew up; however, nothing much mentioning about their upbringing. In the story line, there is no depiction of sibling revery nore showing of Hungbu's disgusts on Nolbu's ill dispositions. It is hard not to speculate that Nolbu's parents were any good in their parenting skills in light of Nobu's ill dispositions; there is no trait of fairness found in Nolbu and it may have come largely from his parents' negligence in parenting. Hubu never goes against his brother, never arguing with him. Nolbu's unruly manner is sub par as a likable human being and Hunbu's unconfident demeanors, which are quite unfit for characteristics one would have for modern living. The story certainly need a significant patch work or revision to fit in modern context and to be more delectable to audience. However, despite all the loose ends, the story survives due to its significant values in entertainment and pedagogy of morality. In fact, the story would never die down because it touches upon universal human traits: greed and jealousy. The story makes us think about compassion, sympathy, fairness which are often loomed in our thoughts when failure, rivary, chaos, hurts, betrayal, or dispute occurs in our lives. Even though Nolbu's quirkiness and flaws may relegate such traits to that extremity in ourselves, greediness is a trait in mankind resonates in our lives even strong, and it may not be surprising to meet someone like Nolbu as it has always been, particularly nowadays in the societies driven by materialism and meritocracy. Greediness is not a abominable trait in mankind, through which mankind thrive developing new technologies; they are essentially fertilizer to our will to survive. Perhaps, the story renders harsh judgement on Nolbu because his greediness is void of fairness. What is he so repugnant is the fact that he does not play a fair game. What is so disgusting is the fact that he pays no attention to others. The trait of greedy person is that he does not know whether his behavior is bad. He never has a critical mind to review himself. He never criticize himself so he keeps on behaving badly with no regard to the fact that he has been hurting others. Perhaps, Nolbu's inability to fight for himself against is that he is so used to his mean demeanors and never growing spirits for fighting for himself. I would think that Hungbu should have engaged a war with his brother. He should have learnt KaeKwonDo and beat up and busting his brother's nose. Is Nolbu a bad person? Greedy person was a bad person indeed in hundreds of years ago in agricultural society, pre-industrialization, where people made their living with farming, which was labor intensive and needed much collaboration. In such society collective efforts were appreciated, which led to conformity and shared values. In such society, helping each other and sharing things was way to go, and Nolbu could have been easily be criticized, but is he still a bad person in modern context? Indeed, he is a bad person: he took the possession of his parents' wealth without sharing with his brother and any other person. How Nulbu had taken the possession of his father's wealth so easily? Has Hungbu let him do whatever his brother what he wants? What is the character of Hungbu? Does he have to succumb to the tyranny of his brother, Nolbu, to take the possession without throwing a punch at him? There is no character of Hunbu in protest of his brother in the story; he was depicted as a subservient brother as if his status within the family is not equal to his brother. The story is deeply flawed in this regard where Hunngbu perceived his brother as a tyranny with higher authority whom no resistance or revolts were allowed. There is no description in the story where Hungbu was beating up his brother. There is no storyline where the two brother were fighting over toy in their childhood. There is not showing of Hungbu of his will to live. After all, there is no man on earth without his desires and wants. Was it such a taboo that younger brother beat up older brother? Is it breaking the norms of the society. It looks like Nolbu was greed and hi made his own rules and expected Hungbu follow the rules. His greed overshadows anything good about him, enough to expunge any of our motivation to like him right off the start. He might have some good qualities. We often ponder how such person could be come about? What was his upbringings in a family and the society were like . Who were his parents? would it be possible that such person could be come about?
He was not a villain; he did not kill anybody nor raped anyone, so he was not a criminal, but his moral standards falls sub par in human qualities. Nolbu was an egomaniac and a sociopath. Basically, he never cared for anybody. He is portrayed as a greedy, unsympathetic, unfair, and jealous person in the story. Does society should play role of such person making advancement into society? What measures are taken to do that?
The story has been told to children with pedagogical values, so it describes Nolbu's character rather tersely. Although one might think that such character would not be born in modern time, history snub off that notion rather flatly as we have seen politicians and educators pushed themselves off the limit in corruption and misconducts. His greed and how they came about are not well described in the story telling. The folklore conveys a moral guideline to listeners: being greedy can lead to disastrous consequences. There was a version came about that fits modern context, describing Heungbu as not a very responsible person - contrary to what listeners would have heard before - whose sphere does not quite fit to modern socioeconomic and cultural context; nowadays nobody can afford to be raising so many children as Hungbu did. For that matter, Hulbu is chastised as a paragon of irresponsibility with naivete and lack of prudence. Unlike Hungbu, there is no comparable version of Nolbu exists, perhaps, it's due to the fact that greediness is pervasive in cross culture and socioeconomic and its value does not change over time: too much greed is bad. In fact, greed is prevalent in all culture and there is no lessening of its ill impacts; we now talk about downing of capitalism due to greediness of 1 % at the top of socioeconomic. When greed gets out of proportion, the story telling becomes all the more enthusiastically heard. The scope of Nulbu's greed is within a village and to an individual - although its impact is not described well in the story telling, the disappointments of being kicked out in a dead winter evening that Hungbu and his family had to face is unimaginable. Perhaps, the story employs overblown size of Hungbu's family to implicate potential harm a person's greed can bring. Certainly, Nolbu is not a villain, he did not kill anybody, he simply acted out, taking advantage of given situation mercilessly without giving too much thoughts of sharing it with his sibling; when his farther died and he took the possession of his father's asset all for himself. He was not a smart person, and yet he already knew instinctively that the society has lopsided policy in governing inheritance, mainly all in favor of eldest child, like him. Nolbu took an advantage of the situation all in favor of himself and he had no notion that what he had done was crossing over the mores of the society, not allowing any part of the inheritance to be given to his brother and any neighbors. Nolbu had no shrewdness of Shylock but he had apathetic mind like him; he knew how to get by with rules and take advantage of them. Realistically, the inheritance rule has been lopsided in favor of the eldest son in Korean society until recently, which was based on Confucian value that pervaded throughout its history.
It is understandable that the sheer size of Hungbu's family might have caused frustration on Nolbu and his family sharing one house with them. However, the manner which he employed was out of ordinary common sense; Nolbu treated his brother like a total stranger as if he has done something terribly wrong. The story owe to its listeners what prompted Nolbu kicking them out so abruptly and so harshly. How can story be so bizzaar not telling the reason!! It brings Nolbu to the level of a sociopath, an abnormal person. Nolbu was a abominable person, a real disgrace for a family to live with. Nolbu could have become frustrated with the chaos that children had brought upon, which led him to asking Hungbu to leave the house. However, giving him nothing in winter time for him to make living was very cruel and down right mean, enough to call him a sociopath. Was the rules of the society was such in favor of the eldest child that he can not fight for his portion of the estate! If he inherited a half of the estate, he would not have become so poor; he could support his family of ten children. Being greed is one thing, but when the matter is worse and cross the line with no consideration of others are taken in purely self-satisfying way, as story line follows Nolbu's greed become worse, it becomes cancer causing traits goes beyond individuals harming society.
What could have brought such traits to Nolbu? After all, he was born in a rich family. His greediness might have come from many venues, especially his depravity and lack of independence. Born in a rich family, he would be an ultimate example of "spoiled rich kid" in modern term. He probably had everything provided for him; he did not have to work hard for anything. The thing is that he had worst kind of education anyone could ever get: nobody scolded him for doing things wrong. Furthermore, he grew up with not much passion for anything; he had no interests in doing things, even having no particular motivation to look after himself. He was rich, but any woman to marry the person surely would have banged her head on the wall for regrets of marrying him. He probably had no decent look to get married, not to mention lack of will to support his family; that's was the main reason why he had to cling on his father's inheritance. Nulbu came about as a result of poorly educated from his parents.
There was nothing good about him. He was not a villain, but he was a egomaniac with no empathy for others. He never cared for anybody. I wonder how much he cared for his family. Maybe, he had love for his immediate family and shared his wealth, but if the money had run out, he would not take the responsibility to take care of them. Nulbu was a very rude person, and that's why we never hear that he had friends in the neighborhood. He married to a woman who was like him; She hit Heunbu, who came to seek help in cold winter, with a spartulla. He mainly focused on his welfare, not even coming close to the norms of society. Given the context of Confucianism that had strong commands in all mores of his time, he took advantage of it and seized the estate when his father died without sharing it with his younger brother, and never feeling sorry for it. Going even futher, he kicked his brother's family out of the house. He had no idea how his behavior would have been perceived by his nephews, who came to seek his help. His greediness manifested into becoming a bad person. There is nothing in the story telling that depicts his "bad behaviors" or where it might have come from. It might be an interesting thing to not even psycoanalytic prognosis on him.
something is closed and environment that is very hiaracal. Domestic violence. Nobody knows what is happening in the family.
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