Orientation Between Reality And Illusion

In the case of ghost stories and alien kinds written by E. T. A. Hoffmann and Pu Songling, investigators usually concentrate on the problem of reality and illusion, which is also the focus of this thesis. It includes an analysis of these two novelists' different attitudes to reality and a comparison of the qualities of the realities in their fictions. It further discusses the world-abandoning tendency of Hoffmann and the world-engaging tendency of Pu Songling, the dualism of the former and the monism of the latter. It then makes a case study of the German enthusiasts and the Chinese vixen-girls in terms of their similarity in identity, and their dissimilarity in emotion and experience. It also explores the consciousness of both novelists and their characters while facing illusion. These distinctions in the literature of these two novels come not only from their different individualities, but also from the influences of the eras and societies they respectively lived in.