First, the optimal combination of "five elements" concept and team learning.
In view of the composition of the Buddhist scriptures team "four followers and one rider", Mr. Yang Yi once pointed out: "As an individual mythological culture, the most dynamic place of this Buddhist scripture group structure is that the four followers have their own characteristics, complement each other's advantages and hide contradictions, but they can cooperate to the end in mutual constraints. Guanyin Bodhisattva was ordered to go to Chang 'an from the Western Heaven, and chose these four people to ride among the thousands of waters in Qian Shan, probably because they are the best combination of Buddhist scriptures. "There are many other cultural factors besides the three principles of" contrast "and" adjustment "put forward by Mr. Yang with the thinking of unity of opposites. First of all, people often think of the "five elements" theory of mutual development and mutual restriction.
As a mysterious concept of people's understanding of nature and society, "five elements" originated from the worship of "number". The "five senses" on the face, the "five fingers" on the hands and feet and the "five internal organs" in the abdominal cavity all promote people's worship of the number "five". In this regard, Fu Daobin, a contemporary scholar, pointed out: "Since the number originates from five, the hand has five fingers, and five is the basic unit of counting, then' five' has been given some mysterious meaning in the ancient concept. This also affects their thinking habits, that is, when expressing what they have already realized, they like to include complex phenomena of nature and society in the category of' Five'. " In The Journey to the West, this primitive way of thinking has been completely replaced and deformed. The seventh time, the Monkey King, who wrote a somersault, finally didn't jump out of the Tathagata's big five-fingered hand. Finally, "slapped by the Buddha, the Monkey King was pushed out of the West Gate, and the five fingers were turned into five mountains of gold, wood, water, fire and earth, which were called Wuzhishan, and gently pressed down" because the most direct perception of the number of "five" was the five fingers of the hand, and this "centering ape" was simply a simple description of the situation when people used primitive thinking to pinch their fingers to calculate. It is a key link between the past and the future in The Journey to the West, which not only ends the history of the Monkey King's "disturbing Heaven", but also begins the story of learning from the scriptures. Five hundred years later, the Tang Priest, who learned Buddhist scriptures in the Western Heaven, rescued Wukong from Wuxing Mountain, and then gradually formed another symbolic "Five Elements" team. Regarding the philosophical composition of the Buddhist scripture team, Huang made it very clear in The Journey to the West's first pre-evaluation:
According to this book, four masters and five horses have been clearly listed as five items. When the five elements are in harmony, the mind is in mind, and the walker should be fire. In biographies, the mother of wood and golden centimeter are repeatedly used to refer to energy and purity, so Bajie should belong to wood and Friar Sand should belong to gold. Sanzang and Malone are not exclusive, but there is less water and soil in the five elements. Would you rather avoid defects? Fools say that the earth is the mother of all things. Since Sanzang is called the master, he belongs to the earth among the four. The dragon horse was born in the sea and started in the stream, so it should belong to the water.
This statement is confirmed by the poem "Poetry as Evidence" written in Chapter 19: "Gold is stronger than wood, and the ape has fallen down." Jin cong mu gu is one, and mu ren always plays. "the Monkey King, usually regarded as a fire, is clearly defined as" gold "here. This shows that in The Journey to the West's writing, the four great masters and four white horses referred to in the Five Elements will vary from time to time and from place to place, but they are not always the same. In any case, the author fully considered the concept of "five elements" when building this drawing team. This philosophical implication of fate will naturally provide an intriguing interpretation for future generations, and also cause future generations to speculate on the interaction between mentoring and mentoring.
The Tang Priest belongs to the "earth" in the "Five Elements", and Huang claimed to be in the "center" position, while the three disciples who were collected one after another can only play the role of "defending the earth forever". As long as the Tang priest, the leader of the imperial power, exists as a banner, the Buddhist scriptures team will not easily collapse, and the Buddhist scriptures cause will persist tenaciously. No matter from which angle, the Monkey King, who belongs to fire, and Pig Bajie, who belongs to wood, can best embody the unity of opposites. On the one hand, they always take all kinds of measures to make a fool of themselves. Idiots regard "encouraging Master to read the' tightening spell'" as a "joke", which makes the Buddhist scriptures team full of lively drama. On the other hand, the Monkey King released his "fire" easily by teasing the nerd, while Pig Bajie reduced his "wooden" nature by responding to the teasing of his senior brother. It is in this farce-like role design that the author brings infinite humor and relaxed humor to readers. Without this farce of "fire" and "wood", Journey to the West would also become dull. Friar Sand should belong to the "gold" in the "five elements" and sometimes has the characteristics of "earth", so the author intends to use "gold" as a metaphor to describe his temperament as crystal clear as "gold", which shows that real gold is not afraid of fire. It is as thick as "earth" and shows the nature of being virtuous and carrying things. On the way to learn Buddhist scriptures, he helped his brothers exorcise demons, and on the other hand, he maintained the internal unity of Buddhist scriptures with a sense of Dan. In the face of Master's headstrong self-use, Friar Sand came and let nature take its course, keeping his word. He kept the Monkey King at a respectful distance from others, and often advised the Tang Priest not to curse his brother. He also often treated his brother's "grumpiness" with both carrot and stick, and persuaded him to calm down with the old saying that "you have to kiss your brother if you fight a tiger". He understands and sympathizes with his second brother Zhu Bajie. He often gives him a lift with his luggage, and often gently advises pigs not to "break up" easily. He even played the role of "reconciliation" in the conflict between the two brothers. Friar Sand plays an indispensable role in stabilizing the ranks of Buddhist scriptures. In addition, don't underestimate the role of the "water" of Little White Dragon. He not only worked tirelessly as a mount for the Tang Priest and accelerated the journey of the Buddhist scriptures team, but also stepped forward at a critical moment to turn the tide. The "rope rescuer" in Baoxiang County is a prominent example. Without "water", it is not enough to become a "five elements", without a little white dragon, and the team of learning from the scriptures is not perfect.
In a word, "Five Elements" is a mysterious philosophy in ancient China, and "Four Bodies and One Ride" based on the thought of "Five Elements" is a unique philosophical component, mysterious and intriguing.
The second is the consciousness of "four people" and the reasonable layout of the team to learn from the scriptures.
In the worship of mysterious numbers, the group combination of "five" often has a weak individual, such as the "middle" of the "five parties" in the east, west, north and south, the "long summer" of the "five seasons" in spring and summer, and the "five senses" are difficult to implement except ears, eyes, nose and mouth. From this, we can easily think that the "four people and one ride" of the Buddhist scripture team will inevitably have a feeling of "five elements combined". Now, let's put aside this irrelevant "one build" and decipher the cultural code contained in the "four crowds" combination.
"Four people" naturally stems from people's worship of the number "four". There are many permutations and combinations of "four", especially Buddhism pays special attention to the mysterious number "four" when arranging and combining things. In this regard, Mr. Ye Shuxian and others pointed out in "Mysterious Numbers in Ancient China": "There are a large number of' four' structures in Buddhist teachings and documents, and their symbolic functions permeate the whole Buddhism." Such as four boundless minds, four kindnesses, four sufferings, four omissions, four concerns, four religions, four diligence, four Zen days, four photos, four debates, four faiths and four debates, which are widely used in Buddhism.
In the history of worshipping the mysterious number "four", the consciousness of "four people" has strong vitality and infiltration. The Journey to the West's role is mainly composed of "four people" and takes care of all social strata. As Zhang Shushen pointed out in the New Edition of Journey to the West in Qing Dynasty, "Scholars, agriculture, industry, business, three religions and nine schools of thought contend are nothing more than a The Journey to the West. Reading alone is a journey to the west by one person; Scholars, peasants, industry and commerce, three religions, nine streams and a hundred schools each read, and each has a The Journey to the West. " From the reader's point of view, all social classes can feel the existence of their role-playing from The Journey to the West. Tang Priest's mentoring status is complicated. Basically, they are "monks who have become monks halfway." On the one hand, they should play the role of monks who obey the rules and regulations, on the other hand, they show a strong sense of "four people" in their roles and behaviors.
As we all know, Tang's monk, as a well-qualified monk, is always keen to play the role of "scholar" although his behavior and speech norms are Buddhist. Mr. Zhang once pointed out: "The Tang Priest's gratitude complex is a kind of' scholar-bureaucrat dies for his bosom friend', which belongs to the cultural mentality of scholar-bureaucrat. On the way to learn from the scriptures, he showed the elegance of the scribes from time to time. According to statistics, the whole Journey to the West * * * wrote his poems nine times, among which the sixty-fourth time he wrote his poem of reconciliation with the tree demon of Muxian Temple in Thorn Ridge, which shows the poet's temperament. What is more noteworthy is that this role has also played the cultural function of "using literature to control martial arts". In our culture, the "two-way killing of three men" in Yan Zi's Spring and Autumn Swordsman on the Border, was the first to cast a tragic shadow of using literature to control martial arts. From the very beginning, the rulers of the Song Dynasty restricted the rights of military commanders with the strategy of "disarming and returning to the field with a glass of wine", which formed a ruling atmosphere in which civilian officials controlled military commanders. Until the Ming dynasty, it still showed "the court's atmosphere of valuing literature over martial arts." "This is why the Monkey King, a martial arts expert, and three other outstanding disciples are attached to the almost cowardly Tang Priest's cultural background. It is the role-playing of Tang's monk, a weak scholar, that leads to a lot of unnecessary troubles, making the whole The Journey to the West always in a dangerous and swaying narrative.
Zhu Bajie, who was called "a monk who became a monk halfway" by the goblins of Tongtianhe and Pingdingshan, was indeed branded as a "farmer" class in secular society. In Journey to the West, Zhu Bajie appeared as a demon for the first time, but this demon is different. He is the door-to-door son-in-law of Gao Laozhuang and Gao Lao. Gao Lao's evaluation of him is: "He is also diligent in entering the door: he does not need ox tools to plow the fields; You don't need a sword and a staff to harvest Tian He. I fainted. It's okay to come back tomorrow. Just one thing, some will change their faces. " Pig Bajie also said to the Monkey King's fake Gao Cuilian, "I got your house, and although I ate some tea and rice, I didn't eat yours for nothing. I also want to sweep the floor and clear the ditch for your family, move bricks and tiles, build soil against the wall, plow the fields, plant wheat and rice seedlings, and start a family business. " In this way, the author wrote Zhu Bajie quite like a farmer. Even the nine-tooth weapon he used to nail palladium is very similar to the farm tools used to level the land, fertilize and dump manure. On the way to learn the scriptures, Pig Bajie was often ridiculed and teased by all sides, especially the Monkey King, because of homesickness. Pig Bajie appeared on the stage of rivers and lakes as a "farmer", no less than "Granny Liu entered the Grand View Garden", and his embarrassing and funny appearance can be imagined. It is precisely by grasping this disharmony that the author has made an interesting article.
The Monkey King, who was on the way to learn the scriptures, played a hero role from beginning to end, but his words often revealed a businessman's tone. He often talks about the words most used by businessmen, such as "business" and "buying and selling". For example, when he first saw Pig Bajie in the novel, he giggled: "So this is business." Later, the novel wrote more than once that he met a robber and kept laughing in his heart: "Nature! Nature! Buy and sell! " The thirty-seventh time he wrote about meeting a monster and said, "Mind my business." The eighty-third time, when he filed a lawsuit against Li Tianwang, he also claimed: "This is what I do in business. I must lose first and then win. " Moved out all the business stories of businessmen. In addition, the Monkey King is good at exchanging goods. The thirty-fourth time, he wrote that his office tried to trade his hair for a fake gourd, which was a clever trick. Although this kind of exchange is fraudulent, for the sake of justice, the Monkey King still knows how to make those who take advantage suffer. Moreover, Sun's role-playing not only shows the strong desire of the citizen class represented by businessmen for democracy and fairness, but also shows the difficulty of trying to break the inherent feudal order. The Monkey King finally joined the team of learning from the scriptures and embarked on the road of learning from the scriptures. The implication is that the best way out for the merchant class to realize its self-worth in feudal society is to rely on the scholars to make contributions. In a word, in the Monkey King, to some extent, we can smell a commercial role-playing.
"Gong" was originally unknown among the "four great people". They just work hard in society. Isn't Friar Sand a portrayal of this role? In The Journey to the West's zaju, Friar Sand was banished to Liushahe and engaged in the occupation of "pushing sand to suffer", which should be the drudgery of workers. In Journey to the West, he boasted that his wand was "Lu Ban made a kung fu mask", which made him establish a special relationship with Lu Ban, the grandfather of the craftsman.
In a word, the author considered the situation of the "four people" in ancient society when he formed the "four people" team.
Third, the "four corners" customization and the clever collocation of the learning team.
As far as the aesthetic structure is concerned, it is the customization of the four roles formed by the long-term exploration of traditional folk art and literature such as China ancient opera and storytelling that has a decisive influence on the "four audiences" of Journey to the West.
Although The Journey to the West's story, like other Zhang Hui's novels, has gone through the stage of artistic expression of traditional Chinese opera, the stories of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin are staged in the form of individual fragments, while The Journey to the West's story is written into the whole drama text, which is conducive to the overall consideration of role design. In this way, the dramatist's "four roles" design experience will inevitably affect the composition of the Journey to the West learning team. That is to say, the images of the "four regiments" in The Journey to the West have distinct character characteristics, all of which show special aesthetic tension in a certain mechanical structural mode, which is difficult to read and release.
According to the characters' gender, age, identity, personality and other characteristics, the role composition of China's ancient dramas gradually formed into different types, which were fixed as four roles in Yuan Zaju, and evolved into "life, Dan, purity and ugliness" with more detailed division of labor in Ming and Qing legendary dramas and later Peking Opera. In the face of complicated social life, the setting of the four roles should be constant and changeable. In the internal and external synergy of good and evil, in the role-playing of men and women, in the seriousness and absurdity, countless touching stories have been produced. This role model is refined through thousands of processes on the basis of rich aesthetic experience. The Journey to the West, as the only complete The Journey to the West drama in existence, has not clearly given the four masters and apprentices a name of "Dan, Wei, Jing and Za" in the role arrangement, so that we can't confirm the role nature given by the author. However, as a dramatic work, the function of each dramatic role is still very clear. This narrative mechanical structure of The Journey to the West's plays inevitably permeates the role design of The Journey to the West in the novel, resulting in a series of character combinations that do not necessarily correspond to the four major roles of "Dan, Mei, Jing and Za", and the distribution of "Four Groups" by learning from the scriptures came into being. Huang pointed out in the "post-evaluation" of The Journey to the West's eighth appendix:
Never be in the theater, live, be beautiful, be pure and be ugly. Try to compare this book. In terms of characters, the Tang Priest is healthy, the ape is a big net, Bajie is ugly, and Friar Sand is the last. If you tell the truth and enlightened people rely entirely on this heart, then the great purity of the heart can be justified. Tang Priest is kind and gentle, just like a woman, so he lives well. "
Through this analysis, we can fully feel the taste of "drama", the mutual containment and conflict between the characters, especially the interactive conflict between the orthodox hero Wukong (equivalent to hitting the net of the righteous warrior) and the comic hero Bajie (equivalent to hitting the ugly face), which constitutes the basis of the whole novel full of "drama" flavor. Therefore, through people's association with the narrative functions of the four roles of "life, Dan, Jing and Ugliness", the tension of the design of the "four big bodies" characters is fully demonstrated.
At the same time, The Journey to the West's story has also been circulated in the form of storytelling art, and The Story of a Journey to the West, as the main blueprint of The Journey to the West, should be the best text of this kind of storytelling art. From The Journey to the West, we vaguely feel the remains of the role-setting experience of "four beams and eight pillars" in storytelling art, in other words, the experience of "four beams and eight pillars" in storytelling art once again provides an aesthetic basis for the "establishment" of mentoring and four audiences.
"Four beams and eight columns" was originally an architectural term, referring to the basic structure of traditional buildings in China, which provided a guarantee for the stability of the elegant "quadrangle" building in that year. People introduce the word "four beams and eight pillars" when summing up the artistic experience of storytelling. The so-called "four beams and eight pillars", that is, "book root, book collar, book gallbladder and book tendon", are the main characters in the story, and "eight pillars" are the secondary characters to foil and protect the beams. Shu Gen is usually a figure whose social background and historical mission are reflected in a book. At the request of the Bodhisattva, the Tang Priest went to the Western Heaven to learn Buddhist scriptures at the order of the Tang King, which basically played this role. It is the main narrative function of Tang Priest as a "book root" to benefit the people all over the world. The significance of this image lies in enlightenment, which can meet the moral and emotional needs of listeners and readers. Physically, the Tang Priest is full of temptations: because eating his flesh can make him live forever, there are demons waiting on the way to learn from the scriptures, and they are ready to stir up trouble at any time; Because of his masculine beauty, the banshees are also ready to intercept without shame. Once they succeed, they will immediately marry the Tang Priest and destroy the great cause of Buddhist scriptures at any time. The author endows Tang Priest with these two qualifications, which makes it difficult for him to justify himself. As far as identity is concerned, the "master" status gives him the paternalistic final decision, and everything he says seems to embody a conventional idea, which needs to be seriously implemented. Although he is full of words from the sages of the Bible and has been chanting to teach Wukong, this is the role-playing style of the elders in an ethical society. However, Tang Priest's kindness has caused heavy consequences. In the real world, people may get tired of "masters" like Tang Yan, but in the art world, if Tang Yan is observant and not a "master" who often makes trouble, the story of the Journey to the West will not repeat itself. It can be seen that the Tang priest's role as a "book root" is very powerful. "Jin Shu" is a needle and thread figure between the plot and the relationship between characters, and it is the role that makes the whole The Scholars colorful and jumping. Pig Bajie is such an artistic image full of comedy. Compared with the serious role of Tang Priest, Pig Bajie was born with a funny face. He was originally the Marshal Hua Gai in the sky, but he was demoted to the lower bound because of flirting with Chang 'e, but he accidentally dropped a pig fetus and grew into a pig's head and big ears. I came to Gao Laozhuang and forced a good woman to be my wife. After being surrendered by Wukong, he was still reluctant to go, and had to retreat several times on the way to learn from the scriptures. Pig Bajie, who left Gaolaozhuang, has already embarked on the "right path in the world", but it has caused homesickness from time to time; Originally, I could seriously cultivate my self-cultivation, but I was still greedy, sleepy, lascivious and kept my bad habits. The author gives birth to many interesting topics in the ridicule of human nature defects, so that readers can get special aesthetic enjoyment in happy relaxation and laughter. In this regard, the role of Zhu Bajie as a "book tendon" is vividly displayed. "Book collar" is the commander-in-chief of the whole book, and the Monkey King, who jumped out of the charge, is worthy of this role. In Journey to the West, the Monkey King can be seen everywhere. As a "book leader", he is just like the hero in today's TV series, and he is indispensable from appearance to ending every time. The devil looks for trouble and depends on him to deal with it; If others make trouble, he will solve it-without Sun's skills and knowledge, he can't move forward naturally. It can be said that the opening and closing of the westward journey story is pinned on this walker who plays the role of "book collar". "Shu Dan" is a positive image in the book, which can play the role of bonding characters, and this role naturally falls to Friar Sand. In The Journey to the West, Friar Sand can be said to be neither great nor great, and he plays an upright "gentleman" role. Relatively speaking, although he has poor taste, the two brothers can't take the initiative without him to take care of their master and luggage; Without him, the Tang Priest will feel a little unsafe if he is transferred to the rear. Without his repeated mediation, there may be more disputes within the Buddhist scripture team. Friar Sand is bent on achieving positive results. He is steady and cautious, and will never lose sight of one thing and lose sight of another. For example, in chapter 57, he arranged for the owner who was knocked unconscious to find the perpetrator. Another example is that the scriptures retrieved in Chapter 98 are scattered with dust, but among the three disciples, only Friar Sand found "no handwriting" in the book. Friar Sand's character also has a pragmatic side. He believes: "If you don't believe in frankness, you must guard against others." Monkey Sun and Hong Haier had a strange argument about kissing. He quoted a sentence: "Don't come home for three years, don't kiss." He reminded Wukong not to act rashly. This shows that he is not an unnecessary redundancy in the team, but the best candidate who can play the role of "book courage".
Of course, the theory of "four beams and eight pillars" is not just about the role and effect of a single role in storytelling. In fact, it has a huge capacity, covering the complex interaction between various roles, such as positive and negative, rigid and flexible, primary and secondary, Zhuang He and so on, which further adds more inner charm to the composition of the "four masters and apprentices" in Journey to the West.