The Prototype Research Of Love Tragedy

Love is an eternal theme of literature, and the study of love literature emerges in an endless stream too. This article attempts to use the prototype-criticizing method to make an overall study of love tragedy in Chinese love literature. That is to date back to more original and deep traditional culture, only to find out its reasons and to probe into its modern variations and the underlying standard of "truth", "goodness", and "beauty", thus to offer a little bit enlightment for the culture during the transitional period.From the superficial reasons causing love tragedy, this article divides love tragedy into three kinds as follows: One kind is the tragedy caused by the external intervention in love, called in the article "breaking up affectionate couples" prototype; One is the tragedy caused by men's deserting women, called "women beloved first and deserted after all" prototype; Another is the tragedy caused by women's abandoning men and shifting their love to another man, called "Chang'e goes straight for the moon" prototype (a Chinese allusion, Chang'e is a fairy's name, a hostess in an old Chinese tale).In "breaking up affectionate couples" prototype, men and women protagonists find each other congenial, but the merciless external force breaks them up, which causes the tragedy. It includes four plot stages: Man and woman fall in love, Disaster descends, The couple breaks up, The story ends in the illusive integration of host and hostess. This article holds that this prototype which occurred in ancient China can be understood from three angles: Culturally, it is the strangling of the Confucian or feudal ethical codes; Socially, it results from the wrecking of power will; Psychologically, it comes from the intervening subject's envy psychology, preference psychology and the intervened object's foolish loyalty and foolish filial piety psychology. Many alternativecases of this prototype appear in contemporary time, but compared with the ones in ancient time, there are some changes: It lacks the plot stage of "the story ends in the illusive integration of host and hostess, The external force virtualizes, the intervened objects have been expanded from the offspring to its former generation.In "women beloved first and deserted after all" prototype, host and hostess at the beginning are attached to each other like glue or lacquer, but after the woman loses her looks, the man often finds an excuse and abandons the woman. It includes four plot stages: fall in love at first sight, swear an oath of enduring fidelity, find an excuse and abandon, the woman resists. This article holds why this prototype occurs in our country is that culturally it is a result of the idea of men's superiority to women, and it is the potential influence of the attitude of being well-matched in social and economic status and the inevitable choice in the man's pursuit in life; that socially it comes from man's suspicion and woman's approval. Many alternative cases of this prototype appear in contemporary time, but there are some changes: It lacks the plot that "the woman resists", Man protagonist turns from being wicked to the extreme to a man of certain kind with the sense of conscience and repentance, As to the reasons why man abandons woman people neglect man's moral issue and sum it up as the economic or class problems and the corroding of bourgeois ideas.In the prototype that " Chang'e goes straight for the moon", the woman leaves the man on her own initiative, looking for new love and happy life, but it is a pity that they still want to look for a powerful relying-on , so that they go into the blind alley ?the ice-cold "moon", which leads to the tragedy. It includes the following plot stages: Man and women misunderstand each other, Woman goes straight for the "moon", Woman repents in the palace of the moon. This article holds why this prototype occurs in our country is that socially it is to adapt to the severe social criticism on licentiousness, that psychologically it comes from male author's excessive discriminating psycho...