The Allegory Of Rule:Animal Images In The Works Of Lu Xun And George Orwell

Lu Xun and Orwell are two famous writers in the 20th century.The multiple similarities between them have gradually attracted the attention of the academic circles in recent years.Both writers pay close attention to their own times,and they think and grasp the problems of the times with their novels and proses.Their writings have strong political intervention.As literary artists,the political thinking and criticism of the two writers are expressed through vivid and concrete literary images.Lu Xun's "AQ" and Orwell's "Animal Farm" have become highly generalized and allegorical literary images in their respective cultures.Orwell's Animal Farm wrote a fable of human society with the political practice of a group of animals.Lu Xun also often conveys his own thoughts on Chinese culture and social issues by describing various animal images in his works.In the era when the whole world is in a turbulent political movement,the novels and essays of the two writers pay close attention to the fate of the masses,the relationship between rule and be ruled,oppression and be oppressed in human political life,showing a high sense of social responsibility.Therefore,the author hopes to compare the writings of animal images by two writers,and specifically analyze how they use their specific literary images to express their own political thinking.The author hopes that in the process of mutual mirroring,readers and I will have a deeper understanding of the literary ideas and political positions of the two.The introduction part of the thesis mainly introduces the research significance,existing research situation,research ideas,research methods and research difficulties of the selected topics.In the first chapter of the thesis,the author mainly sorts out and analyzes the animal images that symbolize the ruling class and its accomplices of Lu Xun's works and Orwell's Animal Farm.The author starts from the different aspects of the ruling class and the "rules" of the ruling class,comparing the similarities and differences between Lu Xun and Orwell in the selection and description of the animal image of the ruling class.Lu Xun choses "tiger" and "wolf",which are at the top of the food chain and are extremely aggressive and threatening,highlighting the evil,brutal,bloodthirsty,and ruthless nature of the ruling class;yet Orwell uses that seemingly neither wild nor threatening pig as the ruling class in Animal Farm to reveal the concealment and deception of the process of totalitarianism.After studying the animal images characteristics of ruling class and their accomplices in Lu Xun's and Orwell's works,through the comparative analysis of the two,we can further understand the different political environments faced by the two writers and the resulting different thinking about power and oppression.In the second chapter of the thesis,the author focuses on the ruled class formed by animal images in Lu Xun's and Orwell's works.The ruled class in Lu Xun's works includes purely oppressed,two-faced oppressed,and rebels who choose different paths.The ruled class in Orwell's works includes purely oppressed and rebel.In comparison,Lu Xun has deeper and broader attention and reflection on the tragic and weak points of the ruled class.He expresses sympathy for the purely oppressed,praises the rebels,criticizes the two-faced oppressed,and reflects his spiritual rebellious personality with the"heterogeneous" animal images.The images of the oppressed written by Orwell is relatively simple.He hopes that the oppressed good people can realize their powerful strength and unite to fight.Ultimately both writers are eager to call people to create a truly happy and equal society with noble morality and conscience.In the conclusion part,the author discusses the commonalities and differences between the animal images of Lu Xun's and Orwell's works on the basis of the full text.Both writers criticize and expose the oppression of the ruling class to the people and the maintenance of the rule by means of paralysis and deception through symbolic and metaphorical writing.But in contrast,Lu Xun is more focused on exposing the ruthless,bloody and exploitative of the ruling class.Orwell's Animal Farm focuses on the deception of the ruling class by the process of describing the initiation of totalitarianism.This difference is more due to the huge difference in the political environment in which the two are located.In the face of imperialists and the brutal oppression of warlords,as a third world intellectual,Lu Xun has a strong desire of national salvation.Orwell,as an intellectual in the developed countries of the West,is particularly alert of the danger that all forms of modern democracy have evolved into totalitarianism.For the ruled class,Orwell pays more attention to them with a sympathetic attitude,and expects they can be wary of the germination of totalitarianism.Lu Xun's feelings towards the ruled class are complicated.The attitude of "Mourn its misfortune and anger its failures" is also reflected in his shaping of animal images.His purpose is to enlighten the people and hope to rescue them.Moreover,Lu Xun does not treat and describe the ruler and the ruled with a split,but critiques the characteristics of the national as a whole.