Gutom: Analyzing Reader's Experiences Towards Emotional Healing and Resiliency in Webtoon Series

Abstract

Creative narratives are powerful psychological tools that shape an individual’s thinking, influencing their knowledge and emotions (Gupta & Jha, 2022).Webtoons increases emotional engagement of the readers, and can be used as a literary tool to educate students in a classroom setting (Dar et al., 2023). So, what if there was a webtoon that contains positive themes of self-discovery, emotional healing and resiliency, and mature themes such as abuse or domestic violence. How will the readers react or perceive the characters, and the themes in the story?

This study employs a qualitative research design, utilizing thematic analysis as the primary method to identify and interpret recurring patterns within the data. The data would be the opinions, and thoughts of the participants towards the themes, and characters in the webtoon series, Gutom: The Tale of the Wandering Manananggal.