"journey To The West" Narrative Structure Analysis And Tragic Theme

The current research of "Journey to the West" shows that the narrative study of it is still relatively weak compared with all other classics. What's more, the research by using the western narrative method is not thoroughly enough. This paper seeks to use literature structuralism to analyze the narrative structure of "Journey to the West" and explore the structural features of the text through analysis. On this basis, the diverse views about the structure of "Journey to the West" from traditional research can be tested, and we can also analyze the profound theme of "Journey to the West".The paper analyses the present structural research of "Journey to the West" and unresolved issues. The domestic study of its narrative structure is still under the guidance of traditional narrative theory. There are a few structural narration studies on "Journey to the West", but it's not comprehensively enough, as such analysis hasn't considered "Journey to the West" as a direct object of the study. Thus the narrative structure researches of "Journey to the West" is not comprehensive. About abroad, they just want to make a new interpretation on the basis of diverse views of the domestic study. The states make our study be of more important value. Second, literature structuralism needs to be sorted out and chosen according to factual needs. As a literary theory and method in the history, its production and development have extensive theoretical backgrounds and complicated realities. Moreover, there are many differences among different structuralism, which will require specific conditions suitable to make a reasonable choice. Meanwhile, the "Journey to the West" is very similar to the object of traditional study, for example, it has a feature of legend, folklore and so on, which provided realistic foundation for structural analysis of "Journey to the West".On this basis, we conducted an in-depth analysis about the narrative structure the of "Journey to the West". On the surface structure, we have adopted Greimas's three-structure analysis to explore the macro-structure of the "Journey to the West". It contains contractual structure, the structure of the test and clutch structure analysis. This three-level analysis reveals the "Journey to the West" unique narrative structure and its inherent integrited and unified structural. On the other hand, the 81 disasters from the journey will be analyzed. These disasters are made of 41 short stories. According to Todorov's method, we find that each story basically follows the balance -- unbalance– balance narrative model. Thus, these stories both have similarity and independence. So the text has features of horizontal composition. According to surface structure analysis we will see that the inherent of "Journey to the West" not only unified but also independent. Then we can explain tension and freedom of the text.Secondly, deep structures study. We divide and analyze the plot of "Journey to the West" by using the structuralism two opposition's analysis methods and obtain the most core opposition item of the structure text: The maintenance with Breaks, and other opposition items live apart in different status according to the center. After analysis, the in-depth structure indicates that the story's final result and the author's final arrangement all haven't solved the contradiction which has been proposed and faced at the beginning. Moreover, the avoiding to the final affects of Confucian classics on the people and description of common custom to the ideal Holy Land which all to suggest the ideal society the author pursues is disillusioned as well as the hopeless to inquires the solution of society contradictions. Finally, it reveals a tragedy theme from the cover of a satisfactory outcome.Thus, the Structural analysis and study on the narrative structure and the theme of "Journey to the West" give us a better understanding of the unique structure and profound theme of the classics. Despite some deficiencies in the structuralism to the foundation, which it's clearly knew the results of its use shows that "Journey to the West" for the study, not only do we provide a new way of thinking, but also have achieved a lot.