The Comic Character Of Zhubajie

Zhu Bajie is the most comic character in the novel Journey to the West. He looks ugly and silly and has many shortcomings. He likes sleeping and eating; he is amorous and lazy; he likes to show his petty tricks and play practical tricks. But he thinks himself very great. It is such incompatibility between his appearance and activities and his self cognition that creates a kind of humourous and comic effect, which forms Zhu Bajie's comic character. And because the creation of Zhu Bajie's comic character has a deep social and cultural basis, so it appears especially vivid, true and massive. Zhu Bajie's comic character not only plays an irreplaceable role in the creation of the comic style of the novel Journey to the West, but also serves as a foil to the other characters and they bring out the best in each other. Zhu Bajie's comic character also plays a transitional role from single, flat character to complex, round character during the process of the development of Chinese ancient story.This thesis tries to analyze Zhu Bajie's comic character roundly. This thesis falls into three chapters. The first chapter summarizes Zhu Bajie's activities and analyzes the features of his comic character from three aspects. That is, his ugliness of self confidence, his ugliness of vividness and trueness and his fate mixed with comedy and tragedy. The second chapter analyzes the cultural basis, that is the heart studies and the sense of citizen of personality liberation in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, of Zhu Bajie's comic character. The last chapter analyzes the significance of Zhu Bajie's comic character. Firstly, the image of Zhu Bajie forms the humorous style of the novel. Secondly, the image of Zhu Bajie serves as a foil to the other three heroes of the novel. Through the contrast with Zhu Bajie, the readers can see the witness and bravery of Sun Wukong, the piety of Tang Seng and the honesty of Sha Seng. Lastly, this thesis analyzes the transitional role of the image of Zhu Bajie in the character creation of Chinese ancient novel.