본문 바로가기
  • Home

A Study on Cao Wenxuan’s “The Straw House”

  • The Journal of Study on Language and Culture of Korea and China
  • Abbr : JSLCKC
  • 2012, (28), pp.458-492
  • DOI : 10.16874/jslckc.2012..28.018
  • Publisher : Korean Society of Study on Chinese Languge and Culture
  • Research Area : Humanities > Chinese Language and Literature
  • Published : February 28, 2012

NamYong Park 1 한글 1

1한국외국어대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Cao Wenxuan(曹文軒), a chinese author of children’s fiction has written many great novels since 1980’s. One of his novels called “The Straw House” was included in the textbook for middle school students, and became a bestseller with amazing circulation record in China. In 1998, this book was even made into a film by director Xu Geng(徐耿), and won many film awards in 1999. In this paper, I studied the types of characters and description in the “The Straw House” which is Cao Wenxuan’s major work among his novels. This paper is divided into three main parts. In the first part, I dealt with Cao Wenxuan’s opinions on the children´s literature theory. He thinks that the children are the future of china, so the character of the future of their nation will be created by children’s literature. Also, he emphasized the importance of storytelling and the suitable written style for young readers. In the second part, I looked through the types of characters by classifying them as Sangsang(桑桑), Baique(白雀) and Zhang yilun(蒋一轮), and Xima(细马) and Du xiaokang(杜小康). The author described the childhood which innocent hopes and dreams coexists with poverty and difficulty through these characters. In the third part, I analyzed description of “The Straw House”. Cao Wenxuan wrote his own childhood by talking about the worlds of dream and fantasy, and of nature and human, beautifully and lyrically. In conclusion, I expect to find Cao Wenxuan’s position and his influence in the history of children’s literature through studying “The Straw House” from various points of view and understanding its values and impacts on this field.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.