Love And Apocalypse

Although Andersen Fairy Tales have circulated in China for almost a century, as a different culture version it is always considered a "the most familiar stranger". There is no doubt that Chinese readers' love for Andersen Fairy Tales is no less than that from any other countries or nations in the world, but there do exist, in the readers mind about the study on the stories, some incomplete understanding as well as deviation influenced by Chinese popular cultural background and spirit.It can be seen everywhere in his stories that the Chinese version discusses the source of God's spirit and love from quite a different angle compared with the original, which inspired me to look into the religious factors laid on the figures in his story as the cut-in point.The paper is divided into four parts: (1).Question Proposal and Research Method.This part mainly discusses about what the present important results of researches on Andersen illume me. Combined with my own reading experience and thinking over theories, I take the moral image in Andersen Fairy Tales as my research object and propose the idea that what Andersen Fairy Tales demonstrate is not only a profound social problem but also a serious ethic problem. (2). "the good". In this part I put an emphasis on the beauty and kindness of human nature. According to the basic principle called "love others like yourself in the Christianity ethics, I regard the figures of God and Christ as the highest standard of moral behavior among all those Andersen Fairy Tales. For the next step, I divide "the good" into two groups: those who own "love" as their main feature in nature and those "ugly duck" who aim at realizing themselves in reality. The former image is best known for the "love and sacrifice" while the latter prefers concentrating the efforts on pursuing their own value. At the end of this part I'd like to carry out case study on the classical story《The Sea Daughter》so as to reveal the great value of morality held by the little mermaid. (3). "the bad". In this part I focus my concentration on the bad image in Andersen Fairy Tales. The evil will be mentioned as a starter to prove the necessity and rationality of morality. After that I'll firstly give some examples as the typical representatives of the evil, then describe their whole life experience from the very beginning all the way to their returning to the paradise after confessing to their sin. As to the loss caused by the evil, Andersen always chose to treat them with an humorous and implicit deride and considered them as non-absolute sin which can be forgave according to the merciful God. As the very kind spirit of idealism towards human nature can be found everywhere in Andersen Fairy Tales, the story《Shadow》becomes the only exception with the absence of God and in the meanwhile filled with cruelty. (4). Land of Promise and Eternal of Life. Base on what has discussed previously and according to the relationship between Western Children Literature and Christianity, it is put forward that the ultimate objective that the moral image in Andersen Fairy Tales aspire after lies in eternal soul and felicity in Land of Promise. This objective not only is the basic ethic choice on the basis of the meaning of life but also provides the behavioral motive for establishing a kind of absolute and unconditional ethic request. This ethic request is the two imperatives, poetized "Eros" and "Lover" in Andersen Fairy Tales. Finally, it applies the relevant theories of child psychology to probe into the meaning of education Andersen Fairy Tales brings to the children and the solicitude and inspiration that the great comfort from the fairy tales brings to the adults' spiritual world.