The Comparative Of Flowers In The Mirror And Gulliver’s Travels

Flowers in the Mirror is regarded as the Gulliver’s Travels of China in Encyclopedia of U.S. COLLIER. History of Chinese Literature, which is edited by Yuan Xingpei, argues that," compared with Gulliver’s Travels, the earlier westward novel, Flowers in the Mirror has the equal satisfactory results and wonderful, though they are different." These two novels produce in a different era, different regions, but they are very similar. This thesis is intended in the use of modern narrative theory to a comparative study of the two works. Paper is divided into the following sections:The introduction provides an overview of the status about the comparative of the two works and elaborates the writing motivation and idea of this thesis, that on the basis of previous studies. It will use the modern narrative theory to compare Flowers in the Mirror with Gulliver’s Travels from the following four aspects:the background, the plot, theme and narrative mode; At last, it will elaborate the significance and methods of the research on this thesis.The second chapter is the comparison about the author and the writing background of Flowers in the Mirror and Gulliver’s Travels. The two writers lived in different era and countries. They touched the overseas trade and travel from the situation of their countries, which was an interesting theme at that time. In order to have a more profound understanding, we must understand their social environment.The third chapter is the comparison about the plot of Flowers in the Mirror and Gulliver’s Travels. The two works’plot is similarity. Both of them describe a hero from the real world into a unreal and strange world. In a similar plot, the two authors use imagination and fiction to make the two works share the same strong fantasy color. In a specific plot, the two works have a lot of different places. We can see the different living environment, history, culture and literary tradition from these different places.The forth chapter is the comparison of the theme about the two works. Both of them use travels genre and fantasy form to make thoroughly expose and criticize about the dark society to express a more progressive social ideal. But the degree of the two authors’cognition and criticize on some social issues were different.The fifth chapter with the method of modern narrative theory compares the two works in the narrative mode from the four aspects of narrative structure, narrative time, narrative point of view, and the narrator. This part is the innovations of this paper. I put forward my own shallow views based on the research foundation of predecessors.The last part is the conclusion. Through the comparison of the two works, it further illustrates the common aesthetic characteristics of Chinese literature and Western literature, which is the fundamental value of literary existence. Due to the influence of different cultural traditions, there are differences between Chinese literature and Western Literature.