《西游記》: 재구성된 異域

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and explore the characteristics of the descriptions of faraway lands depicted in the classic novel, Journey to the West, and pursue the meanings inherent in the narrative. First, the description of the faraway land in Journey to the West was investigated. In the book, the faraway land is a land of barbarians of lust and cannibalism, a land of insects and bugs, and in a relationship of humiliating lord and vassal and paying tributes. Such adverse representation of the faraway land in the novel is on the continuity the ancient and traditional Sinocentrism. Next, through the description of the faraway land, the paper focused on what the narrative wanted to accomplish at the time. In actuality, the faraway land in the book is not a record of an actual foreign land. By creating the space of ‘faraway land’ in the book, it wanted to undertake two objectives: one, criticize the social malevolence and corruption in the upper echelon in the Ming dynasty and expose the desperate lives of the groaning commoners. In the book, the kings, saints and monsters in the faraway lands are mostly foolish, incapable and evil; and two, correct the national discipline, which was trembled early in the foundation of the country and institute Sinocentrism to protect itself from Mongolia, Japan and Jurchen. Although, in the novel, Tang is praised as being 中華上邦[China as a higher country] and 天朝大國[China as a dynasty of heaven], however, it indicates the Ming dynasty when the book was written. In Journey to the West, Xuanzang is depicted as a true hero who travels the faraway lands and save the people from monsters and enlighten their barbaric ways with the Chinese civilization. The book is full of imagination and delightful humor and may be taken as a light and fun novel, but in fact, it is resplendent with multiple layers of criticism, satire and political ideology as well as the desire for Sinocentrism.