"romance Of The Three Kingdoms" Thief "semantic Interpretation

There are as many as five hundred of "Zei"("thief")in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is one of the most use the"Zei"ancient Chinese novels. As "romance" of "the Three Kingdoms", it follows many words including "Zei"("thief")in the history books. The word of"Zei"means mostly "LuanChen" in the history books. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" makes reservations and expands the meanings. The word of "Zei" mainly has six meanings in "the romance of The Three Kingdoms". First, it refers to the cruel heartless villain of great crime merciless, with the deepest derogatory sense. Second, the disloyal and unworthy at severe derogatory degree. Third, the theft others' property with a low derogatory degree. Fourth, those who comply in appearance but oppose in heart with low derogatory degree. Fifth, the less capable persons at lower derogatory level. Sixth, the antagonists with an ambiguous derogatory extent. The word of "Zei" in "the Romance of the Three Kingdoms" plays the role of weakening "the yellow turban insurrectionary thief" and reflecting the writing skills of contrasting with negative and positive characters and avoiding of decent convict. The main reasons of using the word of "Zei" widely are popular novel style, historical-biography tradition, thinking set, a proverb narrative style and the agricultural people's cultural characteristics. The "Zei" shows dramatically different style in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. The former has more abundant meanings and stronger administrative levels as for meanings of "Zei" and appears more derogatory and understatement in emotional color; the vocabulary with "Zei" in the former appears more elegant in terms of swearing style and the"Zei"in the former has a more important function. As to the writer's subjective intention of using "Zei", the former tends to used for tasting moral character and the later tends to reflect the characters'temperament. As far as the characters ("ZeiZi") who were criticized as "Zei" be concerned, they have more ration and wisdom as well as more constructive actions in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, the "Zei" of Water Margin are more emotional and appear reckless and less wisdom. They often have great destructive behaviors because of outbursts of anger.