A Study On The Narrative Strategy Of "Journey To The West"

Journey to the West is a masterpiece of Chinese Ming Dynasty novels of gods and demons.The reason for its success is inseparable from the narrative strategy used by the author.In order to achieve the ideal narrative effect,the author adopts different narrative strategies in terms of narrative voice,narrative perspective,narrative rhythm,and narrative imagery.Exploring the narrative strategy used in the creation of Journey to the West can give a glimpse of the creative laws and techniques behind the work to a certain extent,so as to provide a certain direction for the creation and research of Chinese fairy tales.Based on this,this research takes the western narratology theories as the basis and combines the relevant theories of Chinese narratology to explore the narrative strategy of Journey to the West from the four perspectives of narrative voice,narrative perspective,narrative rhythm and narrative image.First,in terms of narrative voice strategy,Journey to the West uses three different narrative voices,open,absent,and concealed,to directly or indirectly intervene in the narrative.The public narrative voice directly intervenes in the text as the storyteller,and demonstrates the ideological,emotional and moral education tendency of the work through evaluation and discussion;the absent narrative voice achieves a more objective and authentic way by the narrator withdrawing from the narrative consciously.The hidden narrative voice often uses the characters’ dialogue as a disguise to indirectly express the narrator’s own emotional attitude,thereby subconsciously affecting the reader’s ideological inclination.Secondly,in terms of narrative perspective strategy,Journey to the West alternately uses two narrative perspectives,omniscient and limited knowledge,to display the grand story time and space with the arbitrariness of omniscient perspective,and the limitedness of limited knowledge perspective,forming a dramatic contrast,thus presenting a huge artistic tension.Thirdly,in terms of narrative rhythm strategy,this novel rapidly advances the development process of the story background and the origin of the characters with a fast rhythm.Expression,the use of slow-motion expression to restore the wonderful fighting scenes and the psychological activities of the characters to the greatest extent.When the story lines are parallel and the story space needs to be changed,the author chooses to suspend the development of a certain story line with a paused narrative rhythm,and then narrate another story line,so that the narrator can narrate separately,the two lines go hand in hand,and effectively Adjust the rhythm of readers’ aesthetic acceptance to avoid readers’ aesthetic fatigue.Finally,this literary work uses narrative images in the fields of nature,culture,mythology and other fields to condense the spirit and meaning of the full text,hide the development of the story,and shape the characters’ characters,so that readers can better understand the ideas conveyed by the work.connotation.By analyzing these specific narrative strategies of Journey to the West,we can interpret the author’s narrative intention,help readers better understand the deep meaning behind the narrative of the work,and at the same time provide useful thinking directions and paths for the study of narrative in Chinese fairy tales.