A Study On "Roaming Wonderland" Stories In Chinese Modern Fantasy Children's Literature

"Roaming Wonderland" is an ancient story type,and there are a lot of descriptions in myths,folklores and fairy tales of all nationalities around the world.Joseph Campbell named this kind of story pattern as the prototype of "heroes set out to explore the mysterious world" in his book the Hero With a Thousand Faces,and this kind of narrative structure and story motif can be traced back to the ancient mythological age,which was usually described as travellers leaving their homes actively/forced,crossing the threshold of the unknown world,embarking on a journey of adventure,leaving for a strange field to complete the journey of life experience and toughening.Since entering the new period,the story type of "Roaming Wonderland" has become the most original,typical and structurally representative story type in Chinese modern children's fantasy literature,which has been loved by children readers of all generations since the May 4th period."Roaming Wonderland" is not only a classic story pattern in children's literature,but also clearly shows profound cultural connotations in the circular narrative structure of adventure and return.This paper will do research and analysis based on the selection of " Roaming Wonderland " stories in the history of Chinese children's literature,and explore the development of Chinese children's literature in the past hundred years;at the same time,this paper will combine with anthropology,sociology,psychology,culturology and other related knowledge,to make a more accurate,complete and in-depth interpretation of the "Roaming Wonderland" stories in Chinese children's fantasy literature.The paper is divided into the following parts:The introduction part combs through and sums up the current domestic research status of this topic,and discusses in terms of the attributes,characteristics,patterns and classifications of "Roaming Wonderland" stories on the basis of previous studies.Meanwhile,the paper summarizes the shortcomings of previous studies according to the same or related topics,which were from different perspectives,in order to put forward the research methods and train of thoughts of this paper.The first chapter focuses on the discussing the basic structure model of "Roaming Wonderland" in Chinese traditional folk fairy tales,and analyzes the circular narrative structure hidden in fantasy travel stories according to the Theory of Chinese Narrative,which was put forward by Andrew H.Plaks and Yang Yi.This paper briefly reviews the text characteristics of "Roaming Wonderland" stories in Chinese traditional folk fairy tales,and interprets and demonstrates the narrative structure and aesthetic features of "Roaming Wonderland" stories as a whole.The second chapter mainly discusses the gradual progress of Wonderland structure from traditional folk fairy tales to modern children's fantasy literature.With the development of children's literature in China and the deep influence of western excellent fantasy literature,the story structure of "Roaming Wonderland" has become more and more complicated and the imagination of Wonderland has become more and more lively as well.This chapter grasps the gradual progress of the "Roaming Wonderland" story type in the development history of children's literature in China,in terms of the inheritance and variation of the world view structure,perspective strategy and logic structure between Chinese traditional folk fairy tales and modern fantasy children's literature.According to the basic plot features of "Roaming Wonderland" in fantasy children's fantasy literature,this paper concludes three stages of "departure-leaving home","transition-mutual penetration" and "return-regeneration".The third chapter mainly discusses the stage of "departure-leaving home" in "Roaming Wonderland" stories in fantasy children's fantasy literature.As the initial stage of fantasy travel,it's usually about the young protagonists leaving the familiar domain of life,changing their old concepts,ideals and emotional modes,leaving for the strange world to complete the rite of passage(leaving home mode),in order to highlights the awakening of the young protagonists' self-consciousness,and thus march towards the independence of personality.From the initial situation of the rites of passage in folk fairy tales to modern fantasy novels,which prefer the psychological experience of children's growing process,the model of leaving home has developed into three narrative types: "family" function loss type,"wilderness / civilization" opposition type and "secret territory" type.The fourth chapter mainly discusses the stage of "transition and mutual penetration" in the stories of “Roaming Wonderland” in modern children's fantasy literature.As the climax of fantasy travel,"transition" is the action of transiting the threshold,which means the protagonists complete the displacement transformation between the ordinary living space and the strange fantasy world,by using magic tools,or by following the mysterious guide Messenger,or through the intermediary of a bridge / hole / door."Mutual penetration" refers to a series of plots that the protagonists interact with various supernatural characters in the journey of exploring the fantasy world,seeking magic tools,accepting tasks or tests,communicating with gods,fighting against villains,etc.in the wonderland.These supernatural characters are mysterious objects participating in mutual penetration in fantasy stories,and they may guide,may help or may even threat the protagonists' travel in the Wonderland.The interactions between the two sides constitute the most favored part of adventure myths.This chapter will have a re-interpretation of the text features and development trend of "transition-mutual penetration" stage from folk fairy tales to fantasy children's fantasy literature on the basis of plot function,character image and cultural prototype.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the stage of "return and regeneration" in "Roaming Wonderland" stories in modern children's fantasy literature.As the ending period of the fantasy journey,the protagonists finishes his traveling in the Wonderland,and wins the final battle with the evil spirits,relieves the crisis of his tribe,returns to the real life in the praise of his people as a hero,brings back the happiness to them,and thus admitted by his social group as a formal member with legal functions and status.At the same time,it also echoes the "regeneration ceremony" in the primitive culture,which means the successful completion of the rite of passage,and represents that the reckless,green and vulnerable child identities of the protagonists have died,so that they can be recognized as adult identities in their families and societies.This chapter will start from the development of traditional folk fairy tales to modern children's fantasy literature,focusing on the two perspectives of "return" and "regeneration" to explore the cultural connotations and realistic characters of the last scene of the story of "Roaming Wonderland".The last part discusses the Eastern and Western landscapes under the context of globalization with the help of the perspective of comparative literature.The focus of this chapter is to summarize and briefly analyze the Chinese and Western fantasy travel stories from the mythological age to the industrial revolution,especially to compare and discuss the works with typical meanings in the fields of children's literature and science fiction,aiming to compare the differences in artistic characteristics and cultural values between the Chinese and Western "Roaming Wonderland" stories.At the same time,this paper discusses the underlying causes for the differences in the development of "Roaming Wonderland" stories between China and the West,from the aspects of historical process,social style and features,cultural and ideological trend,literary modality and so on,and ponders over the significance of inheriting and innovating the fantasy tradition of "Roaming Wonderland" by contemporary Chinese fantasy writers.