“When a Mother’s Love Turns to Stone”: A Semiotic Analysis by Roland Barthes in the Folk Tale of Moronene

Abstrak

The Moronene folktale is important to study because it contains cultural, moral, and social values that reflect the community’s understanding of relationships between children and parents, social status, and origins. This study aims to analyse the system of signs in the Waipode da Tewali Kamia Kamiano folktale through Roland Barthes’ semiotic framework and to uncover the cultural values it represents. This study employs a qualitative approach, with the text of the Waipode da Tewali Kamia Kamiano folk tale serving as the data source. The data were analysed using Barthes’ five semiotic codes: the hermeneutic, proairetic, semic, symbolic, and cultural codes. The findings indicate that this tale constructs moral meaning through the change in Hadima’s attitude following the acquisition of a new social status. Beautiful clothing, cakes, mud, the mother, and stones function as signs representing arrogance, disobedience, a mother’s love, rejection of one’s origins, and symbolic punishment. The main findings of this study confirm that Waipode da Tewali Kamia Kamiano serves not only as entertainment but also as a cultural text that teaches respect for parents, humility, gratitude, social concern, and awareness of one’s origins.

Kata kunci

• Moronene
• Roland Barthes
• Semiotics
• cultural values
• oral literature