Two Tragic Images About Freedom

"Journey to the West" and "Faust" are brilliant artistic treasures in Chinese and German literary history, and the images of Monkey King and Faust reproduce the mental state of people at that time separately. This thesis attempts, from the perspective of spiritual freedom, to make a contrastive analysis of the different cultural backgrounds in which the two artistic images are generated, as well as the two figures’different outcome of the pursuit of freedom and their corresponding effects. This thesis will interpret and compare these two works from the following three aspects:First, although both of the two images pursue freedom, different artistic images were created due to different historical background and philosophical effects. Monkey King was produced in the context of the appearing of capitalism and the heart in the Ming Dynasty. Faust was generated in Deutsche period when the thought of the Enlightenment swept the whole European. The two philosophical backgrounds attach great importance to free spirit of the people, which was reflected on the two art images: Monkey King and Faust.Second, the courses of the pursuit of freedom are hard but the results are different in the two works. Resisting the shackles is the beginning for both Monkey King and Faust; both of them have the experience of adventure. However, the former is ended up with the destruction of the spirit, while the latter is detached in the flesh to complete their mission.Third, the free spirit has different statuses in the western and Chinese cultures. As the different culture existing in the Confucian cultural background, the destination of free spirit must to be short-lived. And the Monkey King, as a warrior rather than a thinker, exists in the Chinese Culture; Goethe’s concern for the human moral free spirit slowly permeates into the mainstream of Western culture, and Faust in turn has become a monument in the history of the human spirit.