A Comparison Of The Thought Of "Nature" Between Chuang Tzu And Albert Camus’ Literary Works

Chuang Tzu and Albert Camus both have a good reputation for their abundant and profound works of world-renowned. Although they were born in different times and from different cultural background, they are accorded with each other on the subject of "Nature". The privations and hard life had made them pay more attention to their living conditions as individuals, so they spent their whole life pursuing freedom and liberation of individuals. By carefully analyzing the literary works of Chuang Tzu and Camus, this thesis will conduct a thematic study on ther common subject of "Nature" show the convergence of their thoughts, and also proposes the author’s own speculation on this subject.This paper contains five parts.Based on the abounding literature materials, the Introduction part clears out the relative concepts and reviews on the literary works of Chuang Tzu and Camus, and then roughly clarifies the current situation of research in the academic circle. This part also simply describes the research background, the ideas, the aim and the research methodology of this thesis, and introduces the significance of research as well.Chapter One starts with the lives of Chuang Tzu and Camus, and displays their calm and unperturbed mentality in front of the hardships of life by understanding the similarities of their personal encounters. In my (?)iew, the "Nature" here means all things in nature. Looking upon the nature, Chuang Tzu and Camus paid more attention to "water". The various modalities of "water" symbolize the different influences that it had on Chuang Tzu and Camus. Vast "water" represents the open thought; otherwise, little "water" is a symbol of constraint.Chapter Two is based on the Chuang Tzu and Camus’thought of "freedom". They communicate with each other by the same connotation of "water". On the one hand,"nature" is a part of freedom, and is a symbol of free living. Therefore,"nature" has got another meaning---"freedom". On the other hand, the "motion" and "static" moods of "water" have different symbolic meanings. Chuang Tzu tried hard to become one part of nature in order to free his personal character; Camus overcame the restrictions of the surrounding in order to release his mind.Chapter Three emphasizes the concept of "Human" itself; which meanwhile is the key point of this thesis."Human" is the most important proposition in both of Chuang Tzu and Camus’ literary works. They all keenly grasped the simplest natural instincts which are concealed under the secular society. In the literary expression, Chuang Tzu and Camus were good at shaping a variety of weird characters, such as "Queer Fish","Madman" and "the Outsider", in order to highlight the natural instincts of human being. Yet for the differences, Chuang Tzu and Camus had certain things in common when they tried to explain what "Human Nature" is. In this chapter, the meeting points on this subject between Chuang Tzu and Camus will be discussed while interpreting all those different kinds of characters. And at the end, it will bring up the meanings of the "Human Nature", which are to treasure life, to compassionate, to stay a peaceful, undisturbed mind and not to face life with too much joy and death with too much fear.The Conclusion mainly generalizes the similarity that the literary works of Chuang Tzu and Camus both mentioned in the theme of "Nature" on the basis of a summary for the whole thesis. At the end, this thesis points out its methodological significance of the existential value that Chuang Tzu and Camus’thoughts can imposed on the modern society.