|
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which represents a glorious era when many great heroes congregated and struggled to be emperors in the Three Kingdoms, has always been popular for centuries. The rise and fall of the heroes and wars superseded by one another within the ninety years, which led the countries to a state of agitation or of turbulent change, were all vividly and fluently depicted and well-composed by the literary giant, Luo Guan-Chung. It was so well written that the descendents from the generation on deeply believed they were actual historical events, and imprinted the thoughts on their minds, leaving the fictitious aspects behind. Although they were not all historically accurate, the years of The Three Kingdoms were an epoch which was indeed in a turmoil of wars in the history of Chinese. The considerable warlords who did leave their names in history made this era even more magnificent. Luo Guan Chung, with his artistic and creative literary talent, used his fertile imagination and properly arranged his stories based on the facts. All the elements above combined made Romance of the Three Kingdoms a highly-praised masterpiece. In Chinese culture, moral values were deeply embedded in Chinese people, such as being loyal to your kings, brothers, and parents. Guan-Chung Luo, as an intellectual in political turmoil, he felt great responsible for preaching the moral values to all the people at that turbulent time. Therefore the main “brotherhood characters” he depicted, such as Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, had their unique images, special symbols, and all of them glowed with the good virtues, loyalty, and patriotism, which have made the posterity respect and admire them until now. The sort of spirit and characters nurtured by the Chinese traditional culture were the precious cultural assets, which were also one of the reasons why Chinese people differ from the western people.
This study is divided into six chapters. In the introductory chapter, I’ll not only elaborate my research motive, goal, categories, and methods, but also do research on literature review. In the second chapter, I’ll analyze the social and culture background which Luo Guan Chung was in, and discuss the materials which the stories were based on in order to know better about the spirits and thoughts in “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” In the third chapter, I’ll try to give a clear statement about the origin and evolvement of the thoughts on being loyal to the superiors and brothers in order to know better about why the “brotherhood characters” made such choices and acted that way in their lives. In the fourth chapter, I’ll analyze the thoughts and behaviors of Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun to distinguish the outstanding features of the “brotherhood characters” depicted by the author. In the fifth chapter, in order to figure out the immense influence on intellectuals and to appreciate the characteristics of history and culture, I’ll probe into the culture meaning of the “brotherhood character”and the author’s thoughts while he was creating this great work. In the sixth chapter, I’ll sum up the discussions above and bring up the points that will enlighten the mind of people in modern society.
|