Daughter Guoshui Image Research

The Journey to the West、A Dream of Red Mansions and Flowers in a Mirror,written in Ming and Qing Dynasties,are thought highly of in Chinese ancient novels and have great aesthetic value in literary.Meanwhile,it is a noticeable phenomenon that both the “women country” and “water image” are emerged in those novels.While the image of women country and water in ancient Chinese literature has already attracted the concerns of academic circles,there is still insufficient works to study the relationship between them.Therefore,this paper is going to select the water images reflected in the women country as our subjects,and analyze the theoretical problems in them.From the perspective of those three novels,the women country has rich cultural connotation,and water image plays an irreplaceable role in it: the “child-born” meaning of “mother-son river” is vital for the form of “women land with passion”;and the clear Qinfang water makes the Prospect Garden a “women land with clear and purity”,which contrasts with the turbid world in reality.In the narratives of “genderreverse country”,the different forms of water correspond to the changes of the Queen’s image,implying the political situation of the country.In addition,from the views of location,naming and the relationship between its characters,this paper makes a comparative analysis of the water images in those three novels,discusses the narrative skills of the water image in the women country and the evolution of lust behind that in Ming and Qing Dynasties.The study of the form,function and characteristics of water image in women country described in those three novels is also beneficial to the development of image theory.First,the complex relationships between “meaning” and “image” were vividly showed in those three novels.The “meaning” of the text is conveyed by means of“image”,which is the main embodiment of the author’s thoughts and feelings.Meanwhile,“image” is not without foundation,and yet often contains the historical and cultural implications of the past,which can be thought as the organic integration of those two concepts.The existence of the three kinds of women country appeared in those novels is inseparable from the image of water,while different kinds of women country expand the existing space and cultural connotation of water image in turn.Secondly,important links between the reality of “image” and the illusion of women country are manifested in those three novels.In other words,with the help of the reality of “image”,the reality of the field is corroborated and the vividness and attractiveness of literary works are enhanced in the narration of women country.Among numerous images,because of the close connections between “water image” and beings and the rich cultural connotation behind them,the existence of those images have certain universality in Utopia.