A Study On The Evolution Of White Snake Image

The White Snake is one of the classic images of women and today everyone stilllikes her because of her beauty and kindness. However, the White Snake is a serpentand kill people at first. In the following evolution and development of the story of theWhite Snake, the authors created a distinctive image of the white lady, who isbeautiful, gentle, virtuous, kind, brave and faithful. So there is an essential differencebetween the white lady and the horrible prototype and the formation of thesedifferences is not simple and overnight.The introduction firstly explains the courses and significance of the study andthen reviews the predecessors’ researches about the story of the White Snake. On thebasis of previous research, this paper is divided into four parts to analyze the whitesnake image through careful reading of the representative works of different periods，digging deeper reasons of the evolution of the white snake image.The beauty Snake killing peopleIn the early two representative novels, Bai She Ji written in Tang Dynasty and XiHu San Ta Ji in song and Yuan Dynasties are both horror stories between a beautifulwoman who is essentially a white snake and a man. And the white snake is very scarywho eats human heart and hurts human life. In view of the feudal ideology aboutDangerous Beauty, the feudalism literati tried to denigrate women and thought thatwomen like a snake to harm human life.The snake wife changing between human and the BasiliskThere are two representative texts written respectively by Feng Menglong andHuang Tubi respectively. At this stage the White Snake has thoroughly changed theearly evil image into harmless snake wife. The white snake become straightforwardand dares to like daring to hate. And she was very brave to pursue human emotion andmarriage, just like an ordinary woman in the world. And the White Snake becomeharmless to the mankind so that the white snake’s unfortunate fate gets peoplesympathy.The virtuous wife whose life of beauty is for loveLeifeng Pagoda Legend by Fang Chengpei is a masterpiece. The white snakehas faded former shrewish personality and transformed into a gentle virtuous wifewho is always true to the core. And she has her baby so that she has completedthe mission for women.The reasons for the evolution of White Snake Lady image This chapter analyzes the deep reasons of the development course through thefollowing four aspects: historical and cultural origins, the influence of different viewson female at different times, the psychology of the ordinary’s pursuit of perfection andoptimism and the writers’ creation ideas.