"yue Hen" And "peach Blossom Fan" A Comparative Study

Huayuehen by Wei Xiuren, the first full-length novel in which leading characters are prostitutes, has been gained full attention in academic circle since 1980s. In recent thirty years, with the discovery of more relevant information, the researches has been made big progress, which mainly focus on the exploration of the authoring process and the writer, and also has further discussed the value in thought and art. Even so, there are still some defects in the researches of Huayuehen .During the carful study of this novel, I find that there are a lot of similarities between Huayuehen and Taohuashan, a legend of Qing dynasty, such as characters, the mode of narration, and tragedy perspective etc. Moreover, the author of Huayuehen knew the structure of Taohuashan veiy well, and other writers also made comparisons between two novels and commented it. Its creation is deeply influenced by Taohuashan. So I am meaning to explore the artistic features of Huayuehen through making a comparison between Huayuehen and Taohuashan.The whole thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is the comparison of characters with two sections. The first section talks about prostitutes and men of letters of Huayuehen and Taohuashan. It compares such two groups of novels to reflect the resemblance of the character features, which proves that character creation of Huayuehen is influenced by Taohuashan. The second section primarily expounds the manner of character creation, including psychology description and contrast and foil. The author of Huayuehen depicts the psychology of characters in a detailed way, and creates the striking characters in the manner of foil, including setting off by contrast, painting clouds to set off the moon, and providing scenery to set off a character or incident.The second chapter is the comparison of narration modes, which compares and elaborates the structure of double clues and property in Huayuehen and Taohuashan.The structure of double clues has a close relation to the theme. However, such structure presents different modes owing to the difference of style. As for the property, two novels both link the characters and plots through an overarching property in order to polish the theme.The third chapter is the comparison of tragic features. Huayuehen and Taohuashan both create touching love tragedies determined by outside conflict through the comparison of love tragedies and discussion of its origin. The tragedies of two novels mainly embody in the creation of the endings and tragic atmosphere, in which misery endings deepen the effect of tragedy by profound meanings. So, two novels reflect diverse features due to the different styles.