Crazy Characters. "strange Tales" Images

As the starting point for research and analysis, a group image of "the Infatuated" and "the Mad" in Liao Zhai Zhi Yi are analyzed in the paper, and so is their intrinsic relationship with the author Pu Song-ling.First, the author presents a detailed classificatory analysis of the images of "the infatuated" and "the mad", and generalizes their respective personality characteristics as follows: "the infatuated" possess ingenuous personality, strong self-awareness and indomitable spirit of persistent pursuit; while "the mad" are self-confident and arbitrary images with strong sense of social responsibility. However, the two characteristics are of internal unity.Secondly, using the study approach of the Mutual Verification between textual characters and writers, we make a comparative analysis of the personalities of "the infatuated" and "the mad" with Pu's characteristics and lifetime. It can be found that, he not only called himself "the infatuated" and "the mad", but indeed possessed the two characteristics. The infatuated characteristic is embodied in his indomitable creation of Liao Zhai Zhi Yi, and his many times' participating in the "Examination of Keju"; while his integrity, social responsibility and "helplessness and indignation" reflect the characteristic of "the mad". From the two aspects above, we realize apparently that the images of "the infatuated" and "the mad" is actually a kind of self-expression and self-affirmation of writer himself. Meanwhile, the general analysis of the impact, the trend of thought and literary thoughts in late Ming Dynasty brought to the images of "the infatuated" and "the mad" in Liao Zhai Zhi Yi, also confirms this point.