Mysterious Even Numbers And The Narrative World In The Golden Lotus

In the theoretical background of cultural narratology, this paper views the mysterious numbers as a major component of Chinese traditional culture, aiming to explore the effect which the numbers make on the narrative world of The Golden Lotus.On this basis, by comparing the differences and effects the mysterious numbers make on different ancient Chinese classic novels, the paper discusses the underlying causes leading to the differences and general psychological rules in writing.The whole paper expands the discussion at two levels:namely, text analysis and writing theory. The former analyses the even narrative phenomenon from different levels of the narrative world of The Golden Lotus, and on this basis, summarizes the unique number characteristics and the reasons leading it. The latter, by putting the narrative writing in the literary history cultural background, finds that on the one hand, mysterious numbers play an important part in The Golden Lotus as well as in the China’s four classical novels, while on the other hand, in The Golden Lotus only, the effect which mysterious numbers make on the narrative world organization is relatively decreased, and the effect the numbers make on real social life is greatly increased. Also, the paper discusses the advantage psychological factors the author held when he designed the narrative world in his novel and gets the conclusion that advantage psychological factors differ in novels’writing time and their writing types, which is the inherent basis of the author in his narrative world design. Then, the paper infers the most important advantage psychological factor of Lan Ling Xiao Xiao Sheng (the author of The Golden Lotus) and reveals the even numbers narrative characteristics in the narrative world organization of The Golden Lotus and the inherent reasons why the mysterious numbers’effects became decreased.The whole paper is devided into seven parts. The introduction part mainly introduces the research objectives, research methods, the existing research results and the innovation of the novel. The first four chapters discuss the even numbers narrative phenomenon at different narrative levels in terms of the novel’s narrative framework, plot layout, narrative discourse, character structure and the time and space design.The discourse structure of The Golden Lotus is "plus-one".In its overall plot, it is clearly devided into "cold" and "hot" parts in the boundary of the49th and50th times. Within a separate chapter, it is often arranged that two related events are in the same time. These design are all based on the segmentation function of the mysterious even number "two". In terms of narrative discourse, The Golden Lotus has a lot of words and sentences with even number characteristics,such as duality, pun, irony and allude, all of which are the application the mysterious number "two" uses into the novel’s narrative design. The main female characters’names in the novel contain an even number, suggesting its "multi-female" characteristics.Also, by means of comparison and pun which have duality logical relationship, the author makes the characters more meaningful in his novel. Meanwhile, basing on the mysterious even number "two", the author achieves the combinations of "one divides into two"and "life as two" among the characters in terms of the similar or opposite characteristics of their appearance, temperament and conduct. In terms of the narrative time and space of the novel, the author focuses on the design associated with the mysterious even number "four",highlights the background of "The four seasons" and "four dimensions",and expands the narrative space by means of description of reality and non-reality.The fifth chapter analyzes and summarizes the narrative characteristics and reasons related to the mysterious numbers. It points out that as the first independent literary work without any reference of previous works, The Golden Lotus chooses the family theme which greatly narrows the narrative time and space, reduces the mystic and spiritual factors,which limits the function of the mysterious numbers. Within its limited function, the author focuses on describing the female characters and choosing the mysterious even numbers with the "female number" feature in his narrative design. On the remaining part, the paper mainly discusses the advantage psychological factors under different development stages of the novel, and logically infers that the social realities in its transition period greatly affects the author’s advantage psychological factors in The Golden Lotus’s writing and forms the unique narrative world outlook of the whole novel.