Analyzing the “Zhuhai Fisher Maiden” Legend through Greimas’ Semiotic Square: Narrative Structure and Cultural Implications

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-593-5_78How to use a DOI?

Keywords

“Zhuhai Fisher Maiden”; folklore; Greimas’ “semiotic square”; narrative analysis; religious cultural heritage; living myth

Abstract

The “semiotic square” theory (A.J. Greimas) posits that any meaning structure contains a fundamental opposition between [X] and [anti-X]. The “Zhuhai Fisher Maiden” statue, though Zhuhai’s most renowned landmark, has long lacked systematic academic study as a “living myth.” This article examines three legend versions—“grateful,” “tragic,” and “guardian”—via Greimas’ semiotic square, revealing three relational sets in each: oppositional, contradictory, and implicational. Typical oppositions manifest as semantic conflicts between the Dragon Maiden ([X]) and antagonists such as Cangjiao, fox spirit, or clam spirit ([anti-X]), reflecting deeper value conflicts (e.g., true love vs. hatred, justice vs. evil). Despite surface differences, the three versions share a highly isomorphic deep narrative structure. The study further explores their intertextual links with traditional Chinese religious culture, including Daoist cosmology, folk beliefs, and Confucian ethics. The legend is thus not merely a local “living myth” but a composite cultural text that continues to shape worldviews and values in the Lingnan coastal region, holding significant academic and cultural heritage value.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yilian Zhang
AU  - Shuangping Chen
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
TI  - Analyzing the “Zhuhai Fisher Maiden” Legend through Greimas’ Semiotic Square: Narrative Structure and Cultural Implications
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Humanities, Wisdom Education and Service Management (HWESM 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 710
EP  - 719
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-593-5_78
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-593-5_78
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -