Artistic Features of Appreciation of Journey to the West

Artistic imagination

The greatest feature of Journey to the West in artistic expression is that it breaks through time and space, life and death, and the boundaries of gods, people and things with weird imagination and extreme exaggeration, creating a strange and fantastic realm. Here, the environment is heaven and earth, Dragon Palace and Hades, fairyland and Buddha land, dangerous mountains and evil waters; Most of the characters in the book are strange in appearance, like human beings, like strange people, with vast powers and unpredictable changes; The story is about going to heaven and earth, turning the river into the sea, killing monsters, and sacrificing treasure; The author fuses these wonders into a unified and harmonious artistic whole, showing a kind of fantastic beauty. This kind of beauty seems "fantastic", but it makes people feel "real". Because some of those unpredictable and soul stirring stories are just like the shadow of reality, and some contain the truth of life, which is very reasonable. The magnificent and supreme palace is just like the contrast of the imperial court in the sky; The rank and fatuous and incompetent Xianqing reminded people of the officials of the dynasty; The desire to eradicate the evil forces in the society is implicit in mopping up the tyrannical demons; The author praises the unrestrained life in heaven and earth, and at the same time uses the novel to express the ideal of breaking free from bondage and pursuing freedom.

Structural framework

In a sense, Journey to the West has a lot in common with western vagrant novels. The four teachers and apprentices have experienced everything together, but there is no strict order between events. In this sense, Journey to the West enriches the structure of Chinese novels.

The plot framework set by Journey to the West is a God based Buddhist standard system. In the idea of the reason for obtaining scriptures, the book sets up an implementation plan jointly managed by the emperor, the general minister, the emperor of heaven, and the Buddha immortals, namely, a series of major twists and turns, such as "the Buddha made the true scripture, the Goddess of Mercy sought the good faith, Wei Zheng killed the old dragon, the Tang king returned the sun to the nether world, and Xuanzang sought the scriptures". Then more than four fifths of the length of the book describes the disasters experienced on the way to obtain scriptures, Finally, it ends with taking back the Sutra, spreading the Sutra to Dongtu, and realizing the five saints. Centering on the large and small plots of this religious story line, the author's narrative language and lyrical poems and songs contain the spirit of Buddha and Buddha supremacy and the combination of Buddhism and Buddhism, which makes it the overall emotional framework that governs the characterization of characters and the opening and closing of plots in the book.

Character image

The novel has also made great achievements in the portrayal of characters. One obvious feature is the combination of animal form, magic power of gods and demons and human will spirit. The combination of the three produces many unique artistic images with different shapes and distinct personalities. The characters created in Journey to the West are also very distinctive, achieving the unity of materiality, divinity and humanity. The so-called "physical property" means that the spirits of certain animals and plants keep their original appearance and habits, such as bird spirits can fly, scorpion spirits have poisonous spines, spider spirits can spin silk, etc., which is their character, and is often commensurate with it, such as monkeys are clever, mice are timid, and apricot trees are frivolous. Once these animals and plants become demons and monsters, they have magical abilities and have a "divine nature", which makes them transform from "true" to "magic". However, at the same time, the author gave them the seven emotions and six desires of people, humanized the demons and ghosts, made them have "human nature", and combined "illusion" with the deeper "truth" of the world, thus completing the creation of a unique artistic image. For example, the Monkey King in the book is a monkey with a furry face and a public mouth. He is smart, clever, and active. At the same time, he is versatile and has the ability to change like seventy-two. However, although he can change a lot, he often shows the true appearance of "red buttocks" or "tails". He is a magic monkey, but also an ideal human hero. He is brave and resourceful, selfless and fearless, tenacious, positive and optimistic, arrogant, competitive, impulsive, playful, and has some weaknesses of mortals. He is an artistic model of "truth in illusion" created by a stone monkey at the intersection of deification and humanization.

Witticism

As a long tradition of ancient Chinese literature, the technique of combining Zhuang with harmonic has been well reflected in Journey to the West. Almost everything on the way to the west can't escape being teased and joked by Monkey King. For example, in the seventy-seven chapter, it was written that Tang Monk was trapped in the Lion Camel City, and Monkey King went to the Lingshan Mountain to cry to the Tathagata; When Buddha said, "I know that demon", the walker suddenly said, "Tathagata! I heard people say that the demon is related to you!" When the Tathagata explained the origin of the demon, the traveler immediately said, "Tathagata, if you compare this way, you are still the nephew of the demon!" This witticism brought Buddha from heaven to earth. Another example is that in the 29th chapter, Zhu Bajie first boasted that "I am the first person who will fall (demon)" in the kingdom of Baoxiang. When he showed off his tricks, he said that he could "arch a big hole in the sky", and the cowhide blew loudly. As a result, he could not fight with the monster for eight or nine rounds, so he left Monk Sha and ran away, saying, "Monk Sha, come and fight with him and let the old pig pay tribute." "He didn't care about Monk Sha. He slipped into the artemisia herb, Ficus pumila and Kudzu vine, regardless of whether it was good or bad. The tube scraped its scalp, hurt its face, fell asleep, and never dared to come out again. But half of his ears were left to listen to the banging." This play is undoubtedly a bitter mockery of Pig Bajie, who likes to talk big and only cares about himself. This kind of joke makes the whole book full of comedy and humor.

symbolic meaning

Judging from the current popular reading books, only Journey to the West has a hundred chapter structure, and the other three books have 120 chapters. On the one hand, this situation is due to the need for the length of the narrative content of the novel itself, and on the other hand, it is set by the author to express the deep meaning. Shi Lin believes that "the main function of Huimu is to narrate, that is, to summarize the story outline of a Huishu in the most refined language", and at the same time, it is convenient for readers to retrieve chapters. Tang Monk and his disciples finally got the Tripitaka Sutra after going through the ninety-nine eighty-one difficulty. Buddhists stress on perfection of merit and virtue. The ninety-nine Bodhisattva reckons that Tang Monk and his disciples are still a little short of success. Even if they can reveal the truth, catch up with Vajra, they will still have a difficult time. The last difficulty in getting through the Tianhe River and falling into the water is the perfection of Buddhism. The number "nine" has a very profound cultural connotation in Chinese traditional culture. In the sixty-four hexagrams of the Book of Changes, "nine" is called a positive line. "Nine are the number of the old Yang, and the movement occupies the place. The ancient Yang is called Yan." "Nine" is an extremely positive number. Liu Shipei wrote in his book "Supplement to the Doubt Examples of Ancient Books" that "all numbers that refer to the extreme can be called" nine ". The number of difficulties in learning from classics is set as the sum of nine nines, which shows the difficulty of learning from classics on the one hand and the great fruit industry on the other. In the ninety-eight chapter, Tang Monk and his disciples have arrived in the western sky. If the narration goes on normally, it should end in the ninety-nine chapter. It is only eighty, which means that they cannot achieve the goal of perfect cultivation. The setting of the last difficulty is quite ingenious. On the one hand, the four masters and apprentices completed the established ninety-nine eighty-one difficulty, and achieved great success; On the other hand, it is set in the ninety-nine chapter, where "ninety-nine" is the maximum two digit number. Further, it is concluded by a hundred chapters, which symbolizes the most complete, that is, the end of a hundred chapters, as an end, and at the same time as a new beginning, that is, ninety-nine begins to return to "one".

In the novel, it is difficult to get through the Tianhe River, and the design of Guan Mu is very strange. Tang Monk and his party walked over the mountains and mountains for fifty-four thousand miles to reach Tongtian River. Tongtian River is in the middle of the journey and in the middle of the journey. Tang Monk and his disciples came back here to meet the last difficulty. The completion of the first pass through the Tianhe River realized the ultimate goal of his life, and ended the determination of ten generations of practice, from the beginning (the ninth pass through the Tianhe River) to the middle (the 49th pass through the Tianhe River) to the end (the 99th pass through the Tianhe River), and the 99th and 81st pass through the Tianhe River. Thus, the practice of the Tang Monk (the golden cicada) in the previous nine generations was completed in the tenth life, which was also the fulfillment of the Tang Monk in this life, and finally got the positive result.

The "five elements" refer to five natural substances, namely gold, wood, water, fire and earth, which form the basis of all things in the world. All things in the world follow the law of birth and restriction. From the perspective of the title setting of Journey to the West, it contains the five elements thought, the 22nd chapter "The five elements match with the naive to recognize the old master", the 57th chapter "The five elements are born and overcome the feelings without any order, and only wait for the apes to return to the pass", the 58th chapter "The middle way is separated, the five elements are disorderly, and the five elements subdue demons, and gather together to unite the Yuan and Ming", etc; From the narrative content of the novel, there is no doubt that the attributes of the Monkey King are gold and the Pig's Eight Precepts are wood. The meaning of the author can be seen in the 32nd "Pingdingshan Gong Cao sent a message that Mother Mu of Lotus Cave met disaster", the 42nd "Heart ape was defeated by fire and Mother Mu was captured by the devil", and the 86th "Mother Mu helped to fight against the monster Jin Gongshi to kill evil spirits". As Shi Lin said, "The 'Heart Ape', 'Jin Gong' and 'Jin' refer to Sun Wukong, 'Mu Mu', 'Mu' and 'Mu' refer to Pig Bajie, and 'Huang Po' and 'Tu' refer to Sha Seng. The white dragon horse should be fire. From the perspective of the five elements, Wang Chong's Lun Heng · Wu Xi Pian said:" The fire is already fire, so are its birds and snakes. "The snake nature is fire, so the dragon evolved from the snake naturally belongs to" fire ".

Tang Monk was an imperial scholar of scriptures. He left his mother at birth, was saved by the monks of Jinshan Temple, and lived when he met gold (in front of Jinshan Temple). In the structure of five elements, the understanding of the sky belongs to gold, and gold generates water. In other words, Wukong acted as the living straw of Tang Monk in the whole process of learning scriptures. Without Wukong Tang Monk, it is difficult to move. There are several records about the water disaster in the novel: Eagle Sorrow Creek, Liusha River, Heishui River, Tongtian River, but Wukong is helpless to the monsters in the water, and also powerless to the Tang Monk's incantation. In the 49th time, when Tang Monk was caught under the Tongtian River, he felt that there was no hope to learn scriptures. Wukong advised him, "Shifu, don't hate the flood. After the clouds, soil is the mother of the five elements, and water is the source of the five elements." Tang Monk, as a mere mortal, is difficult to complete the task of learning scriptures, and it was he who saved the Wukong people. In this sense, Tang Monk is not only the master of Wukong people, but also their biological parents. As the source of Buddhist scriptures, Tang Monk seems to have some connection with water, and he encountered water difficulties, but he has the same tenacity as water, and never slackens his efforts to learn Buddhist scriptures; It was his wateriness that penetrated Wukong, the "stubborn stone", with the power of water piercing the stone, and finally succeeded in learning from the scriptures. If sex belongs to water (the source of the five elements), then it is reasonable.

In this way, the five Tang Monk apprentices formed a circular closed corresponding relationship with the five elements. Wukong, as the main force to learn scriptures, was controlled by the Tang Monk's tight incantation; Bajie always gains the trust of Tang Monk, but he is afraid of Wukong; Monk Sha and White Dragon Horse are devout scholars. Monk Sha unites the whole team with the "cohesion" of "soil". The five masters and apprentices are not a simple attribution, but a complex three-dimensional relationship schema. The Western Paradise is the core connecting point between the five.