碩士 / 國立臺東大學 / 兒童文學研究所 / 97 / This thesis studied the image of dragon and its meaning, based on three series of modern fantasy, which are The Earthsea, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and Inheritance Cycle.
In western culture tradition from Greek Mythology and Bible to the myths and folklores of Italy, Germany, Northern Europe and England, researcher found the image of dragon to be evil, cunning and cruel. With the ability to fly and to spit fire, dragons in western tradition showed their strong self-centered characteristic. However, the dragons in The Earthsea, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and Inheritance Cycle were quite different from the traditional western dragons. They resembled the traditional Eastern dragons in many ways instead.
Researcher compared the dragons in The Earthsea, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and Inheritance Cycle to C.G. Jung's collective unconscious, and found those dragons shared many common traits with the archetype “Wise Old Man” which means wise, pride and mysterious power. Those dragons also shared some common traits with the archetype “Hero” because they sometimes reminded humans in time to save the world. The archetypes of “Wise Old Man” and “Hero” are both male, but somehow the dragons in those three series were either closer to or being female.
The thesis concluded that such switch in The Earthsea and The Enchanted Forest Chronicles was under the influence of feminism. In Inheritance Cycle, although the rider was male, the novel adopted a female dragon as protagonist. Their cooperation, in which the dualism (male/ female) point of view was integrated, showed the context of these three series.
The evolution of dragon was mentioned in these three series. In The Earthsea, dragons and humans had been from the same origin, while some chose to be grounded, becoming civilized humans, and some chose to stay soaring in the sky. Some dragons of the later group that lived in the east border on Kargad Lands even degenerated into animals without intelligence. In The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, dragons could choose their own genders. In Inheritance Cycle, dragons came in different images. For example, the Ra'zac and its parents had wisdom as dragons but they were cruel, evil and sly. The progress of degenerating evolution performed as some kind of ecological reminder, in which dragons were implied as nature. So the evolution of dragons showed several different stages of how humans interact with nature, from nature being worshiped, to nature being conquered, to nature's powerful rebound on humans, and to finally in the end an ideal mode developed between human and nature.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/096NTTTC638077 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Shin yi Huang, 黃心怡 |
| Contributors | Yu Pei-Yun, 游珮芸 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 105 |
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