| Faith in ghosts existed extensively at the early periods of the development of every nation's culture. Its come about was influenced by the economic condition, religious belief, and fear of death of the ancient society. People placed irresolvable conflicts of real life on"ghosts"they conjured up. In literary works the image of ghosts is even more colorful. In Chinese classical works, stories of ghosts and phantoms of Wei and Jin Dynasties, legends of Tang and Song Dynasties, novels of Ming and Qing Dynasties in particular, various"ghost tales"and"ghost talks"sustained and developed. They usually appeared as a display of the phantom world which is, as it was mirror image of reality. The image of"woman ghosts"in it, embodying the ideal women of Chinese ancient society, possessed distinct characteristics of their own. It is more adequate to say that the identity as ghosts provided fundamental conditions to keep their personality than to say that it is a symbol of desolation and complaint."Woman ghosts of revenge"is the objective reflection of ancient Chinese women's low status and their suppression, as well as manifestation of the morality and values of male-power society. The earliest Japanese image of phantom taking its shape from Chinese ghosts stories, appeared in Tales of Japanese Phantoms, a collection of Buddhist tales at the early period of Heian Dynasty. In the afterwards Today's Novels, we come to see the image of phantoms that really reflect ancient Japanese idea of death, whereas the image of woman phantom of revenge mainly appeared in more recent Edo time. The stories of"Lei","Aju","Ayan","Jiliang"have been repeatedly played in various art forms, such as novel, folklore, kabuki, no, etc. At last these images became mature and were called"representatives of phantoms ancient Japanese society". However, Japanese woman phantoms of revenge can only wish to come close to their Chinese counterparts in terms of time of birth and number. The focus of this paper is to explore the difference of these two versions. The writer first sets out to analyze the difference between"Chinese ghosts"and"Japanese phantoms", then analyses and compares their reasons for coming into being and backgrounds. After we come to the part where their different directions of development are compared, and the reasons behind analyzed. At the end, comparisons are made in terms of the change and meaning of the manner of revenge, liability of choice, appraisal, etc.Chinese and Japanese culture,"woman ghosts"and"woman phantoms"of revenge in the two nations'literary works share similar appearance, but differ in essence. Although both of them take revenge after they die from suppression and molestation, as a kind of literary image, they nonetheless reflect their shapers'values and morality in background, development and manner of revenge. In addition, under the influence of the two nations'different development situation, national mentality, and belief, these two images can be anything but the same in essence. |
