Research On The Nicknames Of The Characters In Outlaws Of The Marsh

China has a long history of nickname culture. In daily life, people are always called a certain nickname. In the process of literary creation, the writer also sometimes nicknames the character. The ancient novel Outlaws of the Marsh is the most representative one. In this novel, almost every character has a nickname, which is of research value. This thesis will discuss the nicknames of the characters in this novel.This thesis totally contains three parts: introduction, text and conclusions.In the introduction part, the research objects, the present status of research and the source of nickname culture are elaborated.The text is the main body of the thesis, being divided into five chapters:In chapter one, tabulate statistics of the nicknames of the characters in Outlaws of the Marsh is made. Based on the statistics, the nicknames of the characters are classified and the features of these nicknames are analyzed to wholly grasp the nicknames of the characters.In chapter two, the ways of these nicknames in Outlaws of the Marsh are mainly probed. They are analyzed from two aspects. Firstly, the cause of these nicknames is related to the writer’s taking over the previous works; secondly, it is related to the writer’s own creation.In chapter three, the text functions of these nicknames in Outlaws of the Marsh are discussed. The text functions will be comprehensively revealed through discussing the shaping of the character images, the transmission of the writer’s praises or criticism, the relations to the plots, and so on.In chapter four, the cultural connotations of these nicknames in Outlaws of the Marsh are discussed. Rich connotations implied in the nicknames such as the mentality of hero worship, name culture and brotherhood culture are mainly discussed to further reveal the relationship between the nicknames in Outlaws of the Marsh and Chinese traditional culture.In chapter five, the influences that the nicknames of the characters in Outlaws of the Marsh have on the later generations are discussed through two aspects. Firstly, the influence on the later literary creation is probed. Outlaws of the Marsh is not the pathfinder of the nickname description of the characters, but is one literary work gaining the greatest achievement. The nickname description in it has profound and lasting influence on the later literary works. Secondly, the influence on the later peasant uprising is probed. Among many peasant uprisings in Ming Dynasty, the leaders always took the nicknames of the heroes in Outlaws of the Marsh as their own nicknames.In the part of conclusions, the main content and the significance of this thesis are concluded.