현대 한국의 장례의식에 나타난 죽음관 = Concept of Death on Funeral Rite in Contemporary Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<Abstract>

Concept of Death on Funeral Rite in Contemporary Korea

Song, HyeonDong*

The purpose of this article is to compare to the traditional ritual of deaths in Korea, the modern ritual of death which reveals different aspects from the traditional ways. Recently, the ritual of death in contemporary Korea shows aspects of the change of funeral way and funeral site and the reinforcement of ritual of abnormal deaths.
I concluded through this kind of discussion as follows.
First, funeral rite in contemporary Korea loses rapidly the traditional features. Funeral ways changes rapidly from burial to cremation and funeral site moves from home to funeral parlor. Particularly moving of funeral site is beyond the level of simple space movement and caused ritual change. Funeral rite in contemporary Korea generalize the ritual of death which traditional society have tabooed.
Second, the ritual of death for the abnormally died is reinforced in contemporary Korean society. This kind of death ritual is processed, putting on concept of death in traditional Korean society
Third, the privatization of funeral rites appears in Korean society. There are many causes in these phenomena. But among the causes, we can find a significant one in the inclination for the field of religion to ascribe the response to whether for or against cremation, to the free choice of individual believers without expressing their clear stances. The increase of cremation have not to do with religious sources in Korean society
In sum, the ritual of death stood for by funeral rites is clearly private area which is settling a person's death, but is a cultural action in that it is socially handled because he is a member in a certain society, and it reflects the life modes of contemporary people and their consciousness.

Key Words: death ritual, normal death, abnormal death, ritual change, privatization of funeral rite