| This is a research paper which discusses the dragon slayer in the world literature. It introduces the spread and evolution of the dragon slayer in the world scope from the perspective of literary anthropology, trying to find the deep cultural significances behind the literary motif.The discussion of the prototype motif of dragon slayer is introduced by several books of contemporary pop "romance literature" in this paper. Since there are a great number of various types of "dragon slayer story" in the eastern and western literature, the storys will be listed by the kinds of " dragon slayer " according to the analytical method of folk-literature in S. Thompson’s Motif-index of folk-literature, so that we can summarize the evolution laws of dragon slayer storys from simple to complex,and from single motif to combined motifs.In the second part of the paper, the truth of the dragon slayer motif will be deeply probed in the cultural field of view on the basis of the previous chapter. So, analysis in this chapter is mainly from the following several aspects:first, collecting and organizing different present ceremonies and the ruins about dragon slayers in different cuntries and nationalities,so that we can make written materials and specific and vivid living culture into combination of vivid living culture; Secondly, widely collecting the meanings of "dragon"in authoritative dictionaries of several countries and nationalities, for laying a basis for a more in-depth discussion of the image of the mythological animals,including the source and changes of the spelling of the word "dragon" in the west and the source and changes of character patton of the Chinese word "Long"; Third, concluding the evolutional law of the image of the dragon through analysis the storys of dragon slayer mentioned above.Finally, the article explores and summarizes the prototype and the significance of dragonslayer motif,that is what is "dragon" as a mythical prototype.This part uses Canadian writer Frye’s theory of "archetypal criticism" and the French scholar Girard’s theory of "scapegoat" for interpreting the prototype of the "dragon" from the perspective of the Literary Anthropology. Eventually, we come to the conclusion that "dragon" as a prototype, is a monster image imagined by mankind, using the right mechanism to protect themselves,when they counter crisis from internal spirit and external nation and society. The last small section, supplement is trying to interpretation the difference between Chinese and Western narrative in dragon slayer storys. China, as a Eastern country, has a continuous uninterrupted civilization. Rulers in Chinese ancient dynasties took the responsibilities which originally belong to dragons, used the power of the dragon, and became the representative of the God,so the tradition of killing dragon began to be replaced by honer of dragon. In West, the conception of killing dragon rooted in Sumer was suddenly cut by Christian Culture when it is developed freely. In Christian, the God and Satan stick to the completelly opposite position. Satan, as a symbol of the devil, is always compared to an evail dragon. Under the influence of Christian Culture, Western Literature nowadays has a great many of superior dragon slayer storys than Chinese literature.To sum up, this pape explain the slew of human mind behind dragon slayer storys on the basis of collecting story material, expanding the vision into the field of culture, and thorough deep theory. |
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