| Since new era has approached us, novels whose theme is focused on animals are rarely seen. The issue of The Wolf Totem and Tibetan mastiffs adds a new color to animal novels. Along with these two works hot selling, there appears a dispute on wolves and Tibetan mastiffs in Chinese literary world. This article simply discusses this hot cultural issue.Through analysis and construction of the traditional image of wolves and dogs, the first part of this article interprets the characteristics of image of wolves and dogs in people's traditional conception and in literature works. The traditional image of the wolf is selfish, violent, cruel and cunning, while dogs'is loyal, servile, mixed with praise and blame. The second part of the article, through The Wolf Totem and Tibetan mastiffs overthrowing the image of wolves and dogs, shows the great changes of the image of wolves and dogs compared with the traditional one in these two works. The image of the wolf in Wolf Totem is full of wisdom and smart, tenacious and they have a strong sense of team work. The image of Tibetan mastiff in Tibetan mastiffs is loyal, intrepid and they have a strong sense of self-esteem, a sense of responsibility and duty. The third part of this article discusses the formation of the culture of wolves and mastiffs and its causes and points out that the conflict between the two cultures is the confrontation between elites and civilians in nature by displaying the conflict of the nature of wolves and mastiffs in The Wolf Totem and Tibetan mastiffs .Due to the different consciousness and awareness of elites and civilians, the two groups of people have different understanding and acceptance about the different cultures, therefore, producing conflicts and confrontations of these two cultures. All of these are in the background of mass culture. Through the profound revelation and digging about the culture of wolves and mastiffs, the nature and profundity of the conflicts between wolves and mastiffs will come up. |
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