3.1 Monkey King’s Realization of Personal Value 9

3.1.1 Desire for Eternal Life 9

3.1.2 Pursuit of Political Ideals 9

3.1.3 Pursuit of Successful Career 12

3.2 Frodo’s Realization of Personal Value 13

3.2.1 Desire for Ordinary Life 13

3.2.2 Persistence During Overcoming the Obstacles 14

3.2.3 Responsibility and Mental Maturity after Suffering 16

3.3 Summary 16

Chapter 4 Cognitive Difference of Heroism Based on Evaluation of Personal Value 18

4.1 Different Complex Cognition of Heroes 18

4.1.1 Frodo’s Complex of Inpidualism 18

4.1.2 Monkey King’s Complex of Collectivism 18

4.2 Different Personal Pursuit 20

4.2.1 Monkey King’s Returning to Perfect Society 20

4.2.2 Frodo’s Returning to Peaceful Life 22

4.3 Summary 23

Chapter 5 Conclusion 25

5.1 Findings of Comparative Study 25

5.2 Limitation and Suggestions for Further Research 25

References 27

Comparative Study on Chinese and Western Heroism from the Perspective of Realization of Personal Value

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background and Significance

Globalization is becoming more and more popular and everyone is trying to pursue and realize their personal value. Meanwhile, this requires us to get a better understanding of differences and similarities among Chinese and western culture. Only in this way can we promote the intercultural communication and enhance mutual understanding between countries and regions.

Journey to the West and The Lord of the Rings are two literary works that are well known all over the world. Journey to the West is a brilliant work in ancient China. It tells us the development of heroes’ character. Most studies on Monkey King in Journey to the West are from the viewpoint of his character and the cultural background of his time. After publication since 1954, scholars’ studies on The Lord of the Rings are mostly based on traditional literature criticism, focusing on the exploration of themes and mythological figures. Discussions on Frodo’s self-development can rarely be found.

From the two works we can find cognitive differences about images of hero between Chinese and western culture. So far, many researchers have done research on the plots and the characters in religion, art and philosophy fields. However, few of them have compared and discussed images of hero in literary works from the view of realizing and evaluating personal value. Inspired by the previous studies at home and abroad, this thesis will provide some reference for the intercultural communication between China and western countries.

1.2 Research Methods and Structure 

This thesis firstly choose to use literature investigation to get the information, hoping to have a comprehensive understanding of the problem worth studying from its history and current situation. Secondly, the thesis have a comparative study of  realization of personal value between the two characters. Then it describes Chinese and western heroism from inpidualism and collectivism and the different choices of two characters’ life style.