![]() Journey to the West is the dramatic story of their adventures.Īfter Monkey has been introduced, subsequent chapters describe Xuanzang’s early life, and then the adventure story begins, as the pilgrim and his three disciplines make their perilous way along the Silk Road. The little group will encounter a series of eighty-one trials before procuring the scriptures and returning home to China. Two more animals with supernatural powers, “Pig” and “Sha Monk,” are also assigned to join the pilgrim on his journey these three disciplines have been pressed into service to atone for their sins from past lives. Monkey is ultimately given a chance at freedom when he is invited to accompany and protect the pilgrim Xuanzang on his journey to India. They feature the main character, Monkey, and outline his mythical birth from a stone, his acquisition of supernatural powers, his shape-shifting abilities, his rebellious, arrogant antics (while in heaven he crossed his name off the list of the dead), and the culmination of all his defiant behavior: banishment from heaven and burial under a mountain for 500 years as punishment. The first seven chapters of Journey to the West serve as background to the main story. These rich literary antecedents form the backdrop for Wu Cheng’s hundred-chapter novel, which bursts with mighty clashes and heroic feats and features a thrilling cast of beasts, demons, and demi-gods. Xuanzang became the best-known Buddhist monk in Chinese history, and the story of his dangerous but ultimately triumphant journey worked its way into Chinese folklore, where for nearly a thousand years it was retold in various legends, tales, and dramas. He returned with 657 Buddhist scrolls, many of which he translated into Chinese. 602-664), a Buddhist monk who traveled the Silk Road from China to India in search of sacred scriptures. ![]() The novel is based on the pilgrimage of an actual historical figure, Xuanzang (c. Journey to the West is, at once, a traditional Chinese folktale, a comic fable, an epic quest story, an allegory, and a pilgrim’s dramatic journey. Influenced by his father, a student of Confucianism and other classic traditions, Wu Cheng developed a love for literature and wrote elegant poems and stories. Its author, Wu Cheng, was born into a family that harbored literary ambitions, though they were bureaucrats and shopkeepers by trade. Journey to the West, sometimes referred to simply as Monkey, is a classic novel that was written during the Ming Dynasty in 16th century China.
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