Abstract
After examining ogres in terms of existential characteristics and its implicit meanings in The Monkey King(The Journey to the West), they are categorized in three ways. Firstyly, the ogres are existential entities, who obstruct Xuanzang's ...
Abstract
After examining ogres in terms of existential characteristics and its implicit meanings in The Monkey King(The Journey to the West), they are categorized in three ways. Firstyly, the ogres are existential entities, who obstruct Xuanzang's journey with evil transfigurations and insidious schemes and try to their desire for eternal life by eating Xuanzang's flesh. However, orges are not simply transfigured, but are the entities with ample humanity as the result of the proper combination of materialness and humanness.
Secondly, although they are ogres, they can transform themselves into holy entities or Bodhisattva. On the surface, they are ogres. However, in other words, they are the entities who can be elevated into the sacred beings. In other words, they have potentiality and possibility of approaching the level of spiritual perfection if they try. They have ogres' evilness and holy entities' sacredness. Therefore, ogres from the Heaven and the spiritual training ogres on the Earth have the characteristics of the entities of ogres and at the same time holy entities.
Thirdly, on the deeper level, the characters, portryed as the ever-changing ogres, are in fact the transforming entities of human desire which endlessly comes and goes. Aspiration, attachment, love, and hate represented by Ogres allegorize infinite human desires. Desire is to get what man wants to have or to escape from what he dislikes. In The Monkey King(The Journey to the West) the ogres are described as aspiring or attaching in order to get or achieve what they want. In other words, they reveal their infinite desire for eating, sexuality, power, and eternal life. These avid desires for eating, sexuality, power, and eternal life are described as the ogres' figuration and behavior.
After the analysis, ogres's existential characteristics and their implicit meanings are confirmed in The Monkey King(The Journey to the West). By allegorizing human desires into monstrous ogres, this classical Chinese epic novel represents the human beings' general issue of existence sucessfully, so it is considered as one of the world classics.