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Reading Notes of Xili's "Twelve Heavens": The Charm of Archetypes

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    Xili's novel "Twelve Heavens" provides a possibility of exploration in the scene of contemporary Chinese novels: how to find an appropriate fit between minority culture and modern urban culture.  As a writer who was born and raised in a minority area, the author sees the tension between primitive civilization and post-modern civilization from the perspective of women, and thus sees the prototype hidden behind the characters.  When shaping the characters, Xili used her delicate brushstrokes to depict the charm of the prototypes that originated from the mountains and flew in the city.

    The heroine in the novel is Aha, a Buyi girl from the Guizhou plateau, and she reveals the charm of animus.  What is animus?  In the psychologist Carl Jung's archetypal theory, it is the masculine characteristic in the female spirit, which provides masculine characteristics to a woman and also provides a frame of reference to guide her relationship with men.  Aha's appearance was quite dramatic: a group of artists who went to collect folk songs in the Buyi Mountain Village "Jinzhu Dazhai" in Huaxi lost their way in the forest and encountered danger.  The swamp has a strange smell of rotting forests, but the most terrible thing is that it swallows people and animals without a sound." So Aha appeared on the stage, and she appeared lightly like a "mountain ghost", and she pointed everyone out like Beatrice.  labyrinth.  Painter Yan Ruqing got to know Aha during this event, and Aha "printed her virgin first kiss on his forehead, eyes and lips respectively".  The wild Aha and the bold Aha went to the provincial capital Guiyang alone to look for Yan Ruqing. From then on, they set foot on the rolling city red dust.  , she finally got her own love, happiness and career.

    In contrast to Aha is Yan Ruqing, a man who was born in the city and grew up in the city, showing typical anima.  In Jung's archetypal theory, the anima is the female characteristic of the male spirit, which is produced by the experience that men have gained from interacting with women over a long period of time.  This archetype serves two purposes: it allows men to acquire femininity, and it also provides a frame of reference in which men and women interact.  Yan Ruqing is a man with an overly strong anima. This overly strong trait has caused his cowardice and autism. Although Aha likes him and loves him, he dare not own her.  disappeared from her world.  This overpowering anima kept him from being happy: "He remembered his childhood desire to be a girl. That desire oppressed him, preventing him from entering the ranks of boys and being intimate with girls.  That desire made him lonely, self-ashamed, and difficult for a long time. At that time, he already felt that he could never have the same clear and firm will as others."

    Different from Aha's strong animus and Yan Ruqing's too strong anima, the male protagonist Wang Ying is the best balanced. In him, the anima and masculinity are balanced.  Li walks with ease between black and white, between art and life, between women and men.  He and Aha are like two intertwined lines, but in the end the two finally come together and achieve happiness.

    Aha, Yan Ruqing and Wang Ying in "The Twelve Heavens", their personas are rebellious girl, weak man, healthy artist respectively, but deep down, they represent Animus and Ani respectively  Ma in different degrees of performance and comparison.  This kind of archetype like a Nuo mask brings a distinct and full personality charm to this novel, and this creatively designed artistic tension also brings a reference paradigm for the character image setting of the novel.

    So, what is an archetype in the archetype theory derived from psychoanalysis?  Through the analysis of personality structure, Jung found that the unconscious is not as chaotic and single as Freud said. In Jung's eyes, the unconscious has two levels: the superficial individual unconscious and the deep collective unconscious.  The content of the collective unconscious is the "archetype", also known as "primordial image".  "prototype".

    According to Jung, "archetypes are typical patterns of comprehension. Whenever we face universally consistent and recurring patterns of comprehension, we are encountering archetypes." Starting from Jung's theory of archetypes, we see that "The Twelve Heavens"  What prototypes are there?  The prototype corresponding to Aha is "wild nature" - the author wrote at the beginning of the novel: "Aha is a fairy, the wife and daughter of King Yelang; Aha is a flower, a flower in the sky, a flower in the plateau forest  Moon Flower.¡± This kind of wildness is shown in Aha¡¯s boldness towards love, in her fearlessness of the modern city that she doesn¡¯t understand, and in her strength after being robbed by the underworld.  And this kind of wildness comes from the environment and culture of the Buyi people. It is the result of the condensation of primitive forests, swamps, and ancient national songs.into the wizard.  The novelist puts a lot of color on her, shaping her wildness and the source of her wildness.  Yan Ruqing's corresponding prototype is urban alienation. He has been alienated by the city. He has no masculine traits, vitality, courage, and perseverance. When this alienation reaches the extreme, it shows the weakness of women. "Yan Ruqing lazily  , the appearance of completely giving up his claims made Yan Ruyu feel at ease, since she was a child, she liked his obedience to her, and if he rebelled or resisted her, she would become ruthless." His sister Yan Ruyu's rule over him represented the  An alienation of life, and she accepts this alienation obediently, and this alienation has become a symptom of modern urban civilization.  As for the archetype corresponding to Wang Ying, it is as shown in his name: Eagle.  The eagle belongs to the sky, it is an image of art, it is an unruly soul that roams in the sky of the city and the forest, and it represents the dream of human beings beyond the daily life of the world.  Modern urban civilization did not destroy Wang Ying, but only made him more mature and generous, training him into a real man.  So he's a healthy, artistic figure.

    Starting from such archetypes, the characters corresponding to these archetypes, and the "persona" (persona) possessed by these archetypes, the writer profoundly and meticulously reveals the characters' relationships between the grievances and hatreds of these characters, and between the market and the rivers and lakes.  "shadow".  The so-called shadows refer to the passionate, aggressive, and violent tendencies in the characters' hearts. It is these shadows of flamboyant personality that make the characters' images vivid and full.  The intersection of these shadows constitutes the legendary complex of the novel.

    Finally, the writer designed the ending of each character from the perspective of the so-called "self" (the self) in the archetypal theory.  After experiencing the wounds and pains of urban civilization, Aha and Wang Ying returned to the primitive and wild Jinzhu Dazhai in a carriage to recuperate physically and mentally, regained strength, and finally returned to the city to start a new life, while Yan Ruqing  In the city, he chose to commit suicide by jumping off a building.  The so-called "self" refers to the efforts made by people to achieve the unity and integration of personality.  These scarred protagonists have finally realized their "self", although some are joyous and some are tragic.

    Through the design of the personas of the characters in the novel and the design of the corresponding prototypes, "Twelve Heavens" completes the criticism of urban alienation and urban civilization, expresses and yearns for and eulogizes wild civilization.  The endings of the protagonists repeatedly illustrate that human civilization is developing forward, but human unconsciousness is looking backward: only the unpolluted ecology and civilization can give tired modern people new strength and the courage to live   (Remember the website URL: www.hlnovel.com
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