Death Anxiety And Literary Therapy

The Immortals in Wilderness,written by Li Baichuan of qing dynasty,was once highly praised by scholars,but also once banned.After the reform and opening up,The Immortals in Wilderness has aroused readers' interest again,and has returned to researchers' field of vision in recent years.At present,the research results of The Immortals in Wilderness mainly focus on the author,versions,theme,structure,ideology and culture.The study of the ideological content of the novel tends to characterize The Immortals in Wilderness by Confucianism,Taoism or other philosophical schools of thought,the research of Li Baichuan is also difficult to carry out because of lack of data.This thesis tries to draw lessons from the content of The lmmortals in Wilderness forefathers' research results,focus on the author's psychology situation and motivation while composing this novel,put forward "death awareness"and "literary treatment",which have gained less attention by predecessors,but means a lot to understanding the psychological tendency of this novel,and try to do some further discussion.Death anxiety is the root cause of Leng Yubing,the protagonist of the novel,becoming a monk.It is also the psychological problem that troubles Li Baichuan most.It is the important psychological motivation for his creation of The Immortals in Wilderness.This paper will start from the study of the death consciousness in this novel.pay attention to the author's various psychological appeals in the process of creation,and analyze the literary therapeutic function of The Immortals in Wilderness.The thesis is divided into five parts——introduction and four chapters of text:In the introduction,it reviews and classifies the research of ideology in this novel by previous scholars.In the meantime,the introduction briefly introduces the formation and development of literary therapy,and raises up the opinion that "death anxiety" and"literary therapy" are important parts of the psychological motivation of the The Immortals in Wilderness.The first chapter analyzes the formation and evolution of ancient Chinese literati's death view,laying a foundation for the study of the novel's death consciousness.This chapter divides the ancient literati's views of death into four categories:"primitive view of death","self-cheating view of death","life-chrishing view of death" and "alternative view of death".The emergence of this four kinds of death views is influenced by the history,but not arranged in a linear chronological order.Under the influence of various social,cultural and other factors,the literati's views on death may also present different tendencies in the same period.To clarify the types of these ancient death views is helpful for us to analyse the death consciousness of The Immortals in Wilderness.Chapter two discusses the representation of death in the novel.This chapter sorts out all the death events in The Immortals in Wilderness,and analyzes how the death of other people brought psychological shock to the two main characters,Leng Yubing and Wen Ruyu,from different perspectives,and contributed to their awakening of death consciousness.Leng tends fear death itself,while Wen is more afraid of the loneliness brought by the death of others.Leng and Wen are the product of Li Baichuan who deliberately divided his personality into two parts.By combining the death fear from different angles,we could restore the author's personal death anxiety.Chapter three discusses Li Baichuan's extensive psychological appeal projected in The Immortals in Wilderness.Forced by the hardship of reality,the author hoped to find comfort in the creation of novel.These desires can be roughly divided into four types:personality freedom,health freedom,super-power freedom and lifesaving freedom.While given these freedoms,the hero of this novel,Leng Yubing,also paid a series of costs,such as giving up desires and the right to be emotional.However,the author's need of literary treatment is quite strong,and he finally found a compensatory way to erase these costs paid by Leng Yubing one by one,so that Leng could realize the wishes for him with the minimum sacrifice.Chapter four will analyze the literary therapeutic function of The Immortals in Wilderness and its effect on Li Baichuan from the perspectives of psychoanalysis and narration.From the point of spiritual core,the fantasy world constructed by the novel not only satisfied Li Baichuan's desire,but also was restricted by Li's reason,that's why the novel presents two different tendencies of releasing and suppressing.From the perspective of narration,Li Baichuan chose to use the novel,a relatively gentle way of catharsis,to help him purify his emotions and express his thoughts.But because the author himself could not fully agree with religious spirit.which is the key to Leng Yubing's salvation,the healing effect of The Immortals in The Wilderness on Li Baichuan was also limited in the end,without a real contact with the essence of his spiritual distress.