The Journey to the West: Analysis of Setting
"The Journey to the West" is a classic Chinese novel that features a rich and diverse setting integral to the characters' spiritual and physical adventures. The story begins in Monkey's Cave, the idyllic home of the Monkey King and his fellow monkeys, set in the lush mountains of China. This paradise symbolizes a carefree existence before Monkey embarks on his quest for immortality and knowledge, leading him to Jambudvipa, where he undergoes significant transformation and learns the ways of men. The narrative further explores the celestial realm of Heaven, where Monkey engages with legendary figures and faces trials that challenge his character and growth.
As the journey progresses, the protagonists travel through various landscapes, including the perilous Flaming Mountain, known for its inextinguishable flames, and the more mundane yet symbolic Chinese countryside that reflects the struggles of life during that era. Each location serves as a backdrop for both physical and spiritual challenges, emphasizing themes of transformation and enlightenment. The Blessed Region of Buddha, though less detailed, represents the ultimate spiritual destination, where the heroes receive the sacred scrolls to guide humanity towards a more virtuous life. Overall, the settings in "The Journey to the West" play a crucial role in illustrating the characters' evolution and the intertwining of the physical and supernatural realms.
The Journey to the West: Analysis of Setting
First published:Hsi-yu chi, 1592 (abridged English translation, Monkey, 1943; English translation, 1977-1983)
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: Seventh century
Places Discussed
Monkey’s cave
Monkey’s cave. Home of Monkey at an unidentified location in China. Born from an egg transformed from a rock, Monkey reigns over the race of monkeys. Situated in mountains with trees and lakes, Monkey’s habitat is more or less an everywhere place for this everyman character of myth. The monkeys come to think of their cave and the surrounding area as paradise, and they wantonly occupy their time by wandering through the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit.
Jambudvipa
Jambudvipa. City in which Monkey spends ten years studying and learning the ways of men. After leaving his cave and his fellow monkeys when he realizes his own mortality, he crosses the ocean to the east and goes to Jambudvipa. He then crosses what is called the Western Ocean to arrive at Cave of the Slanting Moon and Three Stars, where a Taoist patriarch (who has monklike qualities) first informs him that he can become immortal. While in his stay, he learns how to transform himself into innumerable physical objects, foremost of which is the pine tree.
Heaven
Heaven. After an act of mischief in one of his transformations, Monkey is sent to Heaven itself where the Jade Emperor can both watch and train him. Here, in the Treasure Hall of Divine Mists in the Cloud Palace of the Golden Arches, Monkey continues his adventures with numerous other mythical characters, most of whom are from the Buddhist tradition. Heaven, here, is given to readers as a physical place, but one in which supernatural settings and characters larger than life can both thrive and clash. After one particular misadventure, Monkey is placed under a five-peaked mountain to serve penance and further perfect his spiritual existence; this mountain, so it turns out, had originally been Buddha’s fingers.
Chiang-chou
Chiang-chou. Province of China. In something of a flashback of the work, the story returns to this region to relate the story of Hsuan Tsang (also called Tripitaka) and his murdered father, the governor. In this setting are villages, farms, and large towns, as well as a temple—all reveal the sinful nature of China at the time this conspiracy is related. Hsuan Tsang, after learning the details of his father’s murder, makes a journey to the West, where he, too, comes to the Cloud Palace of the Golden Arches and meets the Jade Emperor. The trip occurs after Emperor T’ai Tsung of T’ang experiences a kind of Buddhist hell in a place called the World of Darkness.
Chinese countryside
Chinese countryside. In this epic trip, Tripitaka (accompanied by Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy) experiences more-than-typical occurrences on their spiritual pilgrimage on some very physical roads. Bandits accost them, for example, but, similarly, the journey comprises places from the supernatural: a dragon appears to give battle, and Monkey rides it. They come to the Cloud Ladder Cave near the River of Flowing Sands, on the banks of which are monsters to provide even more adventures. They also pass through two kingdoms: Crow-cock and Cart-slow.
Flaming Mountain
Flaming Mountain. Hellish place where flames consume everything over hundreds of square miles in which a significant part of the story is set. Because the mountain’s flames are inextinguishable, the only way to get beyond them—and thus to Buddhist heaven to find enlightenment and achieve immortality—is to fly over them by means of using an iron fan. Of all the geographic impossibilities in the work, this one is far more formidable than any of the others. Tripitaka and Monkey are eventually able to put out the flames permanently, and thus they transform the landscape into a set of mountains, which are yet impassable.
Blessed Region of Buddha
Blessed Region of Buddha. Surprisingly few details are given about Buddha’s actual habitat. It is a place in the spiritual world that has physical dimensions. Buddha lives in a most holy monastery where there is a Great Altar and the Great Hero Treasure Hall. It is a place of treasure chests and great feasts; the scrolls are kept in chests with precious jewels on the outside. Entrusted with these great religious scrolls, Monkey and the others are sent back to the Western Paradise; that is, they are sent back to China, where the people can now (because they have the scrolls) receive spiritual guidance and thereby remove themselves from their sinful ways of life.
Bibliography
Bantly, Francisca-Cho. “Buddhist Allegory in the Journey to the West.” Journal of Asian Studies 48, no. 3 (1989): 512-524. Analyzes and explains Buddhist allegorical elements interwoven into this novel.
Ch’en, Shou-yi. Chinese Literature: A Historical Introduction. New York: Ronald Press, 1961. Discusses the structure of the work and traces the literary development of the presumed author.
Christian Century. CI, March 7, 1984, p. 258.
Hsia, C. T. The Classic Chinese Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Critical analysis of six major classical Chinese works includes Journey to the West. Gives historical background and traces similarities to and divergences from the epic pilgrimage of Hsüan Tsang to India, which provides its historical basis.
Hsia, C. T., and T. A. Hsia. “New Perspectives on Two Ming Novels: Hsi Yu Chi and Hsi Yu Pu.” In Wen-lin: Studies in the Chinese Humanities, edited by Chow, Tse-tsung. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. Provides historical background in its comparison of The Journey to the West to another novel of the era.
Liu, Wu-chi. An Introduction to Chinese Literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. Chapter 16 discusses Journey to the West as a supernatural novel that is as much a product of folk tradition as of the author’s creative imagination. Discusses the structure of the novel and concludes that it is a good-natured satire of human foibles and bureaucratic stupidity.
The New York Times Book Review. LXXXVIII, March 6, 1983, p. 7.
Parabola. VIII, August, 1983, p. 122.
So, Francis K. H. “Some Rhetorical Conventions of the Verse Sections of Hsi-yu-chi.” In China and the West: Comparative Literature Studies, edited by William Tay et al. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1980. Analyzes the verse sections, which use all the major genres of verse in Chinese literature, in Journey to the West.