Stereotypes in the Journey to the West

Stereotypes in the Journey to the West

Journey to the West" is a famous ancient Chinese novel of gods and demons. It tells the mythical story of the four teachers and disciples who traveled west to seek the true scriptures. In our impression, the Tang monk is a kind and benevolent monk, the Wukong is a Qi Tian Da Sheng who dares to struggle, the Eight Precepts are lazy and delicious. The Sandy Monk is hardworking and hard-earned. This is our consistent impression, is he real? Let's go into "Journey to the West" again to explore the real characters under the stereotypes.

First of all, is the Tang monk a good person? As a reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, Monk Tang was destined to be extraordinary since his birth. To us he is an embodiment of goodness, courteous at all times. Especially his compassionate heart, even for the robbers who wanted to beat and kill him he could not bear to tell Wukong to kill, but instead to persuade them to be good. Perhaps it is this kind of kindness beyond their own life and death, has always let us forget that the Tang monk is also an ordinary person. It can be said that the Tang monk is both divine and human. His cowardice, selfishness and stubbornness are inevitable. In the 36th round, when the four teachers and disciples stayed in Zhenhai Zen Forest Temple, the Tang monk had a serious illness, the original said: "You can help me up, take out my paper, pen, ink, the temple to borrow an ink stone to make ...... I want to repair a book, and Guanwen sealed in one place, you send me to Chang'an under the driving, to see Emperor Taizong side ...... The monks and ministers bowed their heads three times, and hailed the holy emperor; the two classes of civil servants and military officers entered the same eyes, and the 400 public officials knew that they had been ordered to leave the East, hoping to meet the emperor on the spiritual mountain. I did not expect to meet with any disaster on the way. The monk's illness was so severe that it was difficult to make progress, but the Buddha's door was so far away from heaven. There are scriptures but no destiny, so I am asking the present day not to send someone ......." From this we can see his cowardly side. He was inevitably sick as a human being, but he lost his fighting spirit from it. He made a vow to Taizong to return from three years of taking the scriptures, but after several years of life and death, he was tired of it. And his compassion made a difference. For the robbers who killed many people, he was constantly tolerant. But for Goku who killed the robbers by mistake, he firmly expelled and did not give Goku the opportunity to repent. Thus, it seems that he always had a sense of wariness towards his great disciple Goku, no matter how many times Goku sacrificed his life to save him. He has a sense of laziness and a sense of hostility. These depictions make his image more vivid. We will always be influenced by stereotypes and ignore their true full picture.

The second stereotype is of the Eight Precepts, whose flaws are too obvious to be out of place among the four master and disciples. He gathers the flaws that almost all secular people have, reflecting the inferiority of the general public. It can be said that Bajie is one of the best shaped characters in the Journey to the West. He gathers humanity, divinity and the demonic nature that the Tang monk does not possess. He has undergone multiple changes. From the heavenly pontiff, to the pig demon in the lower world, and finally to the sublimated purifier. His character change has deep-seated reasons. Although the eight precepts have such and such unsatisfactory places, he still made a lot of contributions on the way to the scriptures. Although he was lazy, the first reaction to meet things is to avoid, but under the supervision of others, but still will do their jobs. Of course pig eight quit also have many times by the demon capture of the painful experience, he was tied up mostly cursing state, but never begged for mercy mutiny, see in the big right and wrong above eight quit is a sober cognition. After joining the scripture team, the teacher and the disciples passed the seven extinct mountains, was a thousand years of rare persimmon blocked the way. Open road this kind of smelly live wukong naturally will not reach out, sand monk also nothing good way, finally or rely on eight quit into pig-shaped arch opened a road. The same open road experience in the eight hundred miles of thorn ridge also had a time, eight quit wielding nail rake enough to shovel two days and two nights of roadblocks.

It is important to have a full and multi-faceted perception of the characters and to get rid of stereotypes in order to truly read a masterpiece.