A Comparative Analysis of Tragic Prototypes in Chinese and Western Disaster Myths: Taking Gun’s Efforts in Flood Control and Prometheus’ Act of Stealing Fire as Examples

Abstract

In ancient times, prior to the establishment of written records, early civilizations often relied on oral narratives to cope with frequent yet inexplicable natural disasters. The resulting disaster myths underwent continuous evolution yet eventually crystallized through intergenerational transmission and evolved into a distinct form of collective identity endowed with unique ethnic traits. This paper focuses on the types of natural disasters in mythological narratives, selecting two classic mythological tragedies—Gun’s attempt to tame the floods and Prometheus’ theft of fire—with the aim of comparing the differences between Chinese and Western myths through dimensions such as mythological settings, central figures, and underlying logic, and thereby exploring how national myths articulate distinctive cultural features. By comparing the typical cases of disaster deepening tragedies in China and the West, it can not only help us gain insight into the profound differences between different cultures, but also provide a feasible approach for modern people to solve the problem of disaster response, and even play an important role in the process of continuing the collective memory and cultural genes of the nation.