Charles Dickens' Influence On Lao She's Literary Writing

Lao She is dubbed "the Dickens of China". But to what extent and in what way did Dickens influence the Chinese author? In this thesis, the author tries to answer these questions and to interpret The Philosophy of Lao Zhang in the light of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.In terms of the plot structure, both The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and the Philosophy of Lao Zhang have a loose, episodic, and unplanned structure— in both works, the events of the story revolve around a central character whose presence provides a loose link between the episodes; there are many incidental anecdotes and characters that contribute nothing to the development of the plot. Whereas Dickens's looseness in plot structure is resulted from mixing the comic, picaresque, melodramatic, and sentimental modes, Lao She's can be traced to Zhang-hui Xiao-shuo and the Chinese novel of exposure. As to characterization, both Lao She and Dickens emphasize external qualities and the visual impact of the characters--they are both apt to tagging characters with speech mannerisms, compulsive gestures, and eccentric names; besides, both novelists develop a habit of dividing their characters into two distinctive groups: the good and the bad, and erects a distinct boundary between the two. But Lao She completely abandoned the miraculous denouement of Dickens's novels in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished. His pessimistic outlook on society made such an artificial scheme unacceptable. The above detailed analysis suggest that Lao She derived elements of plot and structure from his distinguished predecessor, but followed his own bent in regard to an underlying philosophy of life. And the comparison can help us to know and understand better the diversity between the traditional culture of China and that of the West.