한국영상문화학회

Research on emotions experienced by characters appearing in narratives is scarce and requires more systematical studies. This study examined universal and general emotions in order to structure and categorize emotions experienced by characters in narratives. This study also examined philosophical and psychological discussions of the East and West in an attempt to understand emotions, and offered a discussion on the classification of emotions experienced by characters in narratives. Semiotic categorization studies were conducted. The results of deriving polar emotions based on semiotic binary opposition, such as ‘sadness’ as an inverse emotion of ‘joy’, ‘forbearance’ as opposed to ‘anger’, ‘relief’ as the inverse of ‘fear’, ‘hatred’ in opposition of ‘love’, ‘acceptance’ as opposed to ‘disgust’, ‘indifference’ as the inverse of ‘desire’, and ‘anticipation’ contrasting with ‘surprise’, we were able to confirm corresponding opposing pairs for specific emotions. Since prior studies on the emotions of characters appearing in narratives are sorely lacking, this study based its premise on the classification of emotions and the emotions of the characters within the narrative. This study’s significance dwells in the fact that the semiotic categorization of emotional expressions was conducted and its validity was confirmed.