On The Death Narrative In "Historical Records"

"Historical Records" is an ancient history book that recorded the history of 3,000 years of ancient Chinese,which inevitably involves the deaths of many historical figures.After these numerous deaths portrayed by Sima Qian's masterpieces,they became a lot of fantastic Death Narrative.The death narration in "Historical Records" is an important part of the narrative of whole book.It has deep meaning and many places for exploration.Therefore,from the perspective of the narrative of death,this article tries to explore the types,the artistic methods and aesthetic implications of Death Narrative through the textual analysis of the relevant contents in the "Historical Records".This paper consists of three parts:introduction,body and conclusion:The introduction mainly includes the reasons for choosing the topic,research significance,research status,research objects,etc.;and also defines the important concept——"Death Narrative".The main body of this article is divided into four chapters:The first chapter is an overview of the deaths in "Historical Records",including the death toll,the status of the deceased,and the specific ways of death.By sorting out the related contents of the three historical styles of Historical Records——Discipline,Family and Biography,we can find that it concludes more than 1700 cases of deaths recorded,and involves about 1,600 characters;the bodies of these dead figures are complex and varied,covering the various groups in the society at that time,including the ruling class of the royal family and upper class officials,the lower bureaucrats and civilians,and some rebeldoms;and their death methods include natural death,accidental death,suicide,and murder.The second chapter mainly studies the content of the death narrative in "Historical Records",which is divided into two parts:the type and theme of death narrative.In chronological order,the narrative of death can be divided into four categories:death prophecy,cause of disaster,death process and scene,and post-mortem events.The death predictions include supernatural miraculous signs as well as personal judgments based on wisdom.Others are based on the Chinese traditional techniques of face-to-face encounters and medical techniques;the causes of the disasters vary according to the status of the personages.The abnormal deaths of(or royal)members are mostly due to inheritance rights.The causes of bureaucratic deaths are relatively diverse and cannot be summarized.The collective deaths of civilians are often related to wars;the death process and scenes are the center of death narratives,therefore,there are many episodes depicting the death of the characters appear in the "Historical Records";the end of the death narrative includes funerals,sacrifices,posthumous names,kinship for relatives,succession and the influence on the political situation and the fate of others.In terms of meaning,many wonderful death narratives are centered around the four themes of power,war,morality,and revenge.The death narrative under the theme of power shows the struggle of historical figures in the vortex of power.They either self-destruct in the sense of expansion brought by power,or suffer from the huge gap caused by the loss of power,or become power majestic,or be victims of the struggle for power;the narrative of death under the theme of war depicted the grandeur and fierceness on the battlefield and the bravery and desolateness of the soldiers;the death narrative under the theme of morality portrayed the glorious image of loyalty,filial piety,and righteousnes;the death narrative under the theme of revenge,tells the story of blood revenge,chivalry revenge,self-vengeance.The third chapter discusses the art gimmick of the death narrative in "Historical Records",mainly from the three aspects of the perfect combination of the general narrative and the present narrative,the special application of the "stylized" technique and the clever setting of the confessional scene.In the Death Narrative of "Historical Records",the generalized narrative has a very significant form of manifestation.It is based on death to carry the pedigree of the emperor(or monarch)family.In addition,in the "Historical Records",we can often find some he generalized narratives,which seem to be arbitrarily spotted,but in fact have deep meaning,such as the death of Zhou Li Wang and the death of Zhang Han;and the presenting narrative in the death narration of"Historical Records" has not only a detailed description of the past,such as the death of Xia Jie,but also a large rendering of heavy ink,such as the death of Qu Yuan and the death of Chu Ling Wang.The using of typicalization techniques in the narrative of death is mainly reflected in the typical and typical aspects of the types of dead characters;the establishment of death confession scenes is a major feature of the death narrative in"Historical Records",typical cases such as the death of Pang Juan and the death of Li Si.The fourth chapter discusses the aesthetic meaning of the death narrative in"Historical Records",focusing on discovering the tragic beauty and sublime beauty.Its tragic beauty is mainly manifested in the strong contrast between the prosperity of the upper figures and the extreme decay of death.The sublime beauty is vividly reflected in those people who have surpassed the terror of death by the power of the spirit.The conclusion part summarizes the main content and significance of the full text.