Research On Red Classic Novels From The Perspective Of Folk Prototypes

With the prototype theory, this article intends to correlate the creation of 17-year red classic novels with the relatively stable folk literature forms, such as motif of story, characters, images, etc. in ancient Chinese myths, legends, folk tales, drama, novels etc so as to expound the original connotations and its modern renovations of folk motif, folk archetypes and folk imageries in the red classical novels as well as to analyze the reasons for using these folk resources by combining the particularities of audiences and the creative subjects. Last it recognizes meanings and limitations of the red classic novels under the folk prototype perspective.The first chapter summarizes the revolutionary development of folk motif in the red classical novels. Firstly, the reincarnation of the growth motif in revolutionary narration. From the perspective of anthropology, persons of “the new” moulded in the red classic novels are “adolescents” and recipients who are about to enter the revolution hall one by one. They leave home to find the truth which is the the completion of a partition etiquette. Most of them are orphans who lost their fathers while the party and its organizations are their “father of spirit” in their growth which can lead the recipients with a kind of spiritual gifts and symbolic powers to endure all kinds of tests, like the elders in the tribe. After the test of blood and fire, the protagonists turned into charismatic leaders(such as anti-Japanese heroes), which is very close to the kind of “renowned ceremony” of "divine hero". Secondly, the evolution in revenge motif from folk tales to the grand narrative. In the revenge story mode, “evil villains cause injuries- struggle- victory – new life of the protagonists”, which is embedded in the class struggle stories of the red classic novels, the characters have experienced the process of “balance- balance is destroyed- a new balance”. The lengendary of revenge evolves into the grand narrative of “liberation”, “revolution” and “class”. It still approves and inherits the strategy of son revenging for the father and values of “good prevails over evil”, and expresses the new ways from the individual type into groups of grand narrative.The second chapter discusses the disguise of the folk archetypes in the red classic novels. Firstly, the displacement of savior prototype under the revolutionary cloak. In the "salvation" motif, there exists corresponding structure in the relationship of "Hero- masses" and “God – man” in myths. The God, honest and upright officials, sky master in ancient times all having saving functions, get a replacement and regeneration as representatives of the party’s “organization” and “hero” etc. But the saviors in the red classic novels do not copy the savior characters in archetype of ancient China, saviors’ images have connected with the class, the collective concept, which strengthens the role of the “class” status as well as the role of savior’s functions. The class identity replacement makes it obtain the power of reality, after a series of modernized transformation, breaking the previous feudal limitations. Secondly, the revolutionary conversion of profiling character mode. The portrait of the opposition of good and evil characters in folk literature and the equation of the imaginative conventions, can provide certain strenghth of the class-identity. Whether heroes from person to God’s “clean” of treatment, or villains portrayed discharging of water, is the process of writing a group of persons paved by a typical pile of arrows effect. The writing of the moster enemies and the formation of heroic paradigm “beauty of the virtue” is the successful transformation of revolutionary character profile. Thirdly, the use of cultural meanings of female prototype. The cultural implications of women and sacrifice is always in characters. Such figures convey the writers’ unconscious pursuit of the female dedication.The third chapter analyzes the political symbols of the folk images. Red classical writers like winners, standing on a new starting point of the era, replace the traditional image of paradise with the meaning of modern revolution: under the bright sky, there is happy smile on people’s faces, the revolution is from a victory to a greater victory. The traditional image of paradise is given a new significance in times in the imagination of revolutionary homes. In China, “heaven” is a symbol. The “sun”and “Thunderstorm”, etc. in the folk becomes dominant symbolic images in the red classical novels, and be given their ideological meaning. “The Communist Party”, “Chairman Mao”, the sun, the moon and the stars have basically a symbolic isomorphic relationship, which conveys the unconscious worship of the sun god throughout the national collective in the last 50 s and 60 s and the unconscious pursuit of brightness and hope. By this approximate imagination, it endows the Communist Party the power of salvation and legitimacy. The thunderstorm, dull weather as a omen of the punishment of evil conducts symbolizes the dark world of politics. There are people’s collective unconscious awareness on existence of a potential resonance between “celestial phenomena” and the “sun” and the “thunderstorm”.Based on the above ideas, this paper argues, with the background of grand political events, 17-year writers grafted the Chinese folk art form onto modern narration reasonably, making the revolution speaking wrapped in a very traditional and old things. it is the eternal narrative mode, archetypes, the symbol images in folk art form that dispel the rigid mainstream consciousness and enhance such literary fiction, which constitute the important core of the novel’s deep cultural taste. From this point, the problem of repositioning the red classic novel in the history of literature, can be reconsidered. But at the same time, In the traditional succession of the red classical novels, there sometimes neglects social life which is an important source of borrowed literature, and there also exists disadvantages of categorization in the red classic novels with generic models.