| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
“Ghosts and Wizards(Liao-chai Chih-I)” inheriting the tradition of tales of the supernatural of Wei and Jin Dynasty and legends of Tang Dynasty, with Pu Sung Ling’s historical background, his failure in searching for a career, and the impact of Confucianism and Buddhism, creates a unique artistic style. Mr. Pu was good at combining fantasy with reality, and fiction and reality. Although the ghosts written were the image of fantasy, but most of them are humane and mainly lived the human world. Mr. Pu exerted his colorful imagination to expand the material to reflect the society through the images of ghosts, presenting a strong comprehension of human society. Since ghosts is included in the title, the book is naturally a book focusing on strange and weird tales. “Ghosts and Wizards” seemed to be talking about the ghost world, yet it was a projection of the real world. Wartime was a constant background for the ghost stories. The examples were Jia Shen Rebellion in “Sz Wen Lang”, Shie Chian Rebellion in “Ghost Crying”, Yu Chi Rebellion in “Gung Suen Jiou Niang”, San Fen Rebellion in “Ghost Slave.” Therefore, we can look into the society at that period of time through the study of the ghost images in the book. “Ghosts and Wizards” also used the ghost images to reflect the real world and all aspects of life, such as the criticism of imperial examination system, reflection of social phenomena, pursuit of love and marriage, sarcasm of the dark side of politics, presenting Mr. Pu’s true realization of life. Thus, this essay puts the ghosts in “Ghosts and Wizards” into eight categories: slavery ghost, evil ghost, nice ghost, mean ghost, romantic ghost, talent ghost, ancient celebrity ghost, ugly ghost. In addition, ghost giving birth and ghost with blood circulation are also being looked into according to their features. Whether Mr. Pu equaled outer and inner beauties when he created a character, different perspectives will be offered in this essay by analyzing the beauty image under his depiction. Moreover, Mr. Pu’s conflicting descriptions of ghost image will also be discussed. On one hand, Mr. Pu presented women’s free will in pursuing love. On the other hand, fatalism of widow keeping moral integrity can be read between the lines. It can be clearly seen that while Pu Sung Ling was way before his time, he could not get rid of Chinese traditional thinking in his blood. | en_US |