Research On The Death Plot Of Yuan Zaju

The plot of death refers to a series of events logically organized around the death of characters in narrative works.There are a large number of death plots in the existing complete works of Yuan zaju.However,there are few related theories in this field.The author thinks that there is still room to explore the death plot in the related research of Yuan zaju."The plot of death in Yuan zaju" refers to the presentation of the death of characters with roles.It not only includes the corresponding narrative content,but also covers the part of stage design.From the aspect of story creation,the death plot of Yuan zaju includes three kinds of narrative contents: "expressing the world’s feelings","punishing and repaying the sins" and "praising the characters".These three kinds of death plots not only have their own unique content orientation,but also have their own functional tendency in the play.The noumenon function of death plot includes two kinds: shaping characters and structure script.The functions of the two kinds of plots are mainly to construct logical relations for the story frame of the play.Among them,the first two types have obvious separation in the script structure,one is the beginning and the other is the end;moreover,there are many cases in Yuan zaju scripts where the two types establish causal relationship and form the story mode of "being killed in vain + getting rid of evil and revenge".The focus of the function of "praising the characters" is the creation of the characters.The creation of this kind of death plot mainly serves the purpose of setting off the noble personality image of a certain character.From the perspective of stage conception,stage effect is the decisive factor for the dramatists to choose the scene of death,the way of announcing death events and the way of creating stage atmosphere.First,the playwright usually deals with the death events that can highlight the conflict between characters and affect the image of the main characters in the open field,and on the contrary,in the dark field to save the stage cost.Secondly,recitation with accurate ideographic effect is a necessary way to declare the death of characters in the death plot of Yuan zaju.Thirdly,the non declarative emotional discourse and environmental descriptive discourse can be used to create the stage atmosphere.When the story has stage applicability,from the script to the theater,stage acting becomes the platform for the death plot of Yuan zaju to play its social function.There are two kinds of social functions of death plots in Yuan zaju.One is to meet the audience’s subjective needs.The plot of death in Yuan zaju,combined with historical events,social events and stories of gods and ghosts,shows the multiple possibilities of life and death,breaks the ending significance of death,and takes the universal moral concepts as the plot logic,exalts the values of loyalty,filial piety,righteousness and emotion,and shapes the third-party power of supporting justice,which not only can dispel the audience’s fear of death,but also can dispel the audience’s fear of death It affirms their inherent rational cognition.The second is educational function.The realization of the enlightenment function of the death plot in Yuan zaju is the core content of the enlightenment,which uses the instinct of human beings to resist facing death directly because of fear of death,and successfully shifts the audience’s attention from the death event to other additional elements in the death plot,namely loyalty,righteousness,virtue and filial piety.The plot of death is an important problem that can not be ignored in Yuan zaju.Therefore,based on 89 Yuan zaju works of the death plot contained in the whole Yuan opera,this paper focuses on the study of the death plot of Yuan zaju from four aspects: the narrative content,the way of expression,the functional performance in the whole work,and the influence on people in literary and artistic activities.In addition to exploring a new research perspective for the study of Yuan zaju,I also hope that the research results based on the script can help today’s dramatists to clarify the empirical knowledge implied in traditional dramas,and give inspiration to the creators on the narrative level and form level of the creation of the death plot.