The Fairy Tale Characteristics Of Journey To The West

As one of the "Four Great Classical Novels" in China,Journey to the West is a masterpiece in Chinese fantasy literature.Since its publication in the middle and late Ming Dynasty,Journey to the West has been welcomed by all generations of readers,and its strong fairy tale atmosphere makes it deeply loved by children.Although "Journey to the West" is not a fairy tale created for children and teenagers specially,it has distinctive fairy tale characteristics with exaggerated imagination,funny language and vivid story.The first part of this paper starts with the concept of "fairy tale" and summarizes the connotation of "fairy tale" as three points: "the satisfaction of children’s play psychology","the catharsis of children’s natural nature" and "the fit of children’s naive thinking".The second part analyzes the text of Journey to the West,and demonstrates the concord between Journey to the West and the connotation of "fairy tale" from three aspects: "the fantastic fantasy world","the unrestrained fairy tale image" and "the unique narrative mode".The third part,from the perspective of children’s acceptance analysis since the Ming and Qing dynasties to the contemporary,how "journey to the west" is gradually expanding from a book to animation,comic books,games,and other fields,under the interpretation of different forms of art,"westward journey",a story in the status of the children’s aesthetic world constantly strengthened,also make the Journey to the West itself great properties of fairy tales to highlight.In the end,Journey to the West is compared with Ye Xian,which is called "China’s Cinderella",and it is explained that Journey to the West is closer to the connotation of "fairy tale" than Ye Xian,which further establishes the unique position of Journey to the West in the development history of ancient Chinese fairy tales.