The Interpretation Of The Fairy-Story Features In Journey To The West In The Perspective Of Tolkien's Theory Of Fairy-Stories

J. R. R. Tolkein's On Fairy-story is greatly influential in the fairy-story research field. Tolkien's aesthetics of fantasy is best expressed from On Fairy-stories with the artistic consideration of fairytales as a genre, the fundamental concern of desirability, the fulfillment of the basic human wishes and the function of such elements as Fantasy, Recovery, Escape and Consolation.As a unique work among the Four Great Classical Chinese Novels, and largely because of its profoundly romantic artistry, rich thematic elements and culturally encyclopedic nature, Journey to the West is variously called'mythological novel','metaphysical novel','book of celestial beings','the work of pure recreation','philosophical novel','political novel','science fiction','allegory novel','religious novel'(being both Buddhistic and Taoistic), as well as'fairytale novel'. The discussion in the present paper is focused on the fairy-story features of Journey to the West in terms of Tolkien's aesthetics of Fairy-stories. In conclusion, the very charms of Journey to the West are by all means derived from the unique artistry of fairytale.The research methods in this paper include both macroscopic and microscopic ones. The text and examples used in this paper are all selected from the Journey to the West, a complete translation by W. J. F. Jenner published by the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing, 2005.The whole thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter 1 generalizes the main idea of the thesis. Chapter 2 explains in detail J. R. R. Tolkein's fairy-story theory. Chapter 3 is the sketch of the stories in the novel. Chapter 4 briefly introduces the outline of the researches about Journey to the West in the past. Chapter 5 demonstrates the applicability of Tolkein's theory to the novel. Chapter 6 and 7 mainly make a research and analysis of the fantasy and its three main functions --- recovery, escape and consolation being embodied in the novel. Chapter 8 concludes the whole thesis. In a word, I intend to study Journey to the West in a new angle, and meanwhile, apply the western fairy-story theory to the study of Chinese fairy-story literature.