1. In the overall style, The Journey to the West is full of strong fantasy, and in ancient novels, he has constructed a fantastic and vivid mythological world. Whether it's fantastic scenery, confusing story, or unique supernatural figures, they are full of magnificent imagination, magical exaggeration and unique aesthetic value. The Journey to the West's most distinctive artistic personality and outstanding artistic achievement is the game pen that combines Zhuang and Harmony. Different from the writing style of ordinary novels, Wu Cheng'en used game pen and ink in the plot conception, scene setting, image building and narrative description of novels, that is, all the contents and forms. Game pen and ink often make the narrative story absurd and emotional, with a strong sense of humor and comedy. Novels are often full of wit and gag, and they do their best to ridicule the human world. Every time they are funny, they have a sense of venting their anger, and their humor is full of irony. Wu Cheng'en's artistic personality of harmony, banter and satire has been brought into full play in The Journey to the West's plot conception.
Second, in the image-building, The Journey to the West organically blends humanity, materiality and divinity, so that "all gods and demons have human feelings, and refined charm is also sophisticated". Physical property refers to the realistic natural attribute of the noumenon of the image of ghosts and gods; Divinity refers to the superhuman spells and skills possessed by the image of ghosts and gods; Human nature refers to the real social attribute of a certain person implied by the image of ghosts and gods. Among them, humanity is the inner core, according to the dominant position. It is the perfect combination of the three that creates many images of gods and demons with high aesthetic value. Most of The Journey to the West's main characters have stereotyped personalities, and then their personalities are rendered, strengthened and enriched in many aspects and levels through illusory plots and fantasy environments. These images with different personalities are not only animals, but also people, and even more genies. They are the combination of homomorphism between man and beast and the same sex between man and god. They have not only the appearance and physiological characteristics of animals, but also the thoughts, feelings and personality of people, as well as the magic and magic of genies. For example, the Monkey King is a monkey, a god, and a living person. He has both the ideal and ambition to dominate his destiny and the magical power of seventy-two changes, all of which are combined with the monkey characteristics of cleverness, cleverness and agility. Pig Bajie has the appearance of a pig, and his gluttony, lethargy, laziness and selfishness are all in line with the pig's habits. Even his thirty-six changes are limited to some stupid appearances, such as changing mountains, mounds, trees, stones and fat men, calling him a little girl, and his head barely changed. "It's just that his stomach is fat, but Lang Heng is not like it." Such game pen and ink dilute the mystery of religion, strengthen the human touch and secular atmosphere of the image, and make it vivid, interesting, authentic and credible.
Third, in terms of artistic structure, the book is clear in latitude and longitude, rigorous and complete. This book consists of three parts: making a scene in three realms, learning from the Buddhist scriptures, and learning from the Western Heaven. These three parts are not only an organically related artistic whole, but also relatively independent. Each part is also composed of several short stories with their own beginnings and endings relatively independent. Among them, making a scene in the three realms is the prelude, the origin of learning from the scriptures is the transition, and learning from the West is the main body. The book takes the Tang Priest and his disciples as the main clue throughout, and connects dozens of short stories in series, which can be called "linear structure". , The Journey to the West's game pen and ink is characterized by "describing things that change in a trance, but also explaining everything" (Lu Xun's A Brief History of Chinese Novels). The novel inherits and carries forward the romantic tradition of ancient literature, combines the play pen with the magic pen, develops rich imagination, and gallops in the heaven on earth and the Dragon Palace in the underworld. In this bizarre and gorgeous art world, it has both the sense of reality and the strangeness and vitality of the ghost world. Behind these fantastic fantasies, the ancient people's hope of conquering nature and defeating the enemy looms.
fourthly, in artistic style, The Journey to the West inherited the excellent tradition of combining Zhuang with harmony. "Playing ink with reason, using magic pen to express strange thoughts", which is also humorous and ridiculous, relaxed and lively, and full of fun, which makes his works full of humorous interest and produces extremely strong comic effect. The works are either casually embellished, interesting in brushwork, or used as an excuse to criticize the current disadvantages, or cynical, full of interest, which can be described as laughing and cursing, and all become wonderful articles.
The Journey to the West has distinctive artistic features. The story is vivid, fantastic and tortuous, showing a rich and bold artistic imagination. The characters in the book have a strong sense of magic and reality. The organic combination of divinity (fantasy), humanity (sociality) and materiality (naturalness) is a prominent feature of The Journey to the West's characterization. The Journey to the West's language is vivid and fluent, and the dialogue between characters has distinct personality characteristics, and it is full of strong flavor of life, showing a humorous artistic interest, which makes the whole work full of artistic charm.