试比较《老人与海与《愚公移山》的异同.doc

A Tentative Comparison between The Old Man and the Sea and Mr. Simple Moves the Mountains [Abstract] The Old Man and the Sea by Earnest Hemingway and Mr. Simple Moves the Mountains, a famous Chinese story, have a lot in common. This paper is mainly a comparison of the two works in terms of the setting, plot, characters, and theme. Due to the different times and cultural background, the two works differ in many ways. This paper is mainly a comparison and contrast with some case studies from the two works so as to probe something underneath the similarities. Key Words: The Old Man and the Sea, Mr. Simple Moves the Mountains, comparison 试比较《老人与海》与《愚公移山》的异同 [摘要] 海明威的《老人与海》和中国古代故事《愚公移山》存在诸多相似之处。 本文主要是对两部作品从背景、情节、角色和主题等方面进行的比较。由于不同的时代和文化背景，两部作品在很多方面均存在差异。这篇论文主要是采用两部文学作品的例子进行对比和比较，以探索它们相似之处下隐藏的东西。 关键词：《老人与海》；《愚公移山》；比较 1. Introduction The Old Man and the Sea, which won the year’s Pulitzer Prize and directly led Ernest Hemingway to be the Nobel Prize laureate in 1954, is one of the most influential and far-reaching novels in the world. Mr. Simple Moves the Mountains is a famous Chinese fable from Liezi-Tangwen. Different in times, countries and subject matters as they are, the two literary works, in a way, bear some resemblance. A noticeable example is the similarities in the main characters, namely, Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, and Mr. Simple in Mr. Simple Moves the Mountains, share somewhat similar spiritual appeals, that is, perseverance, optimistic attitude towards life, confidence, great ambition and courage to challenge the nature. A tentative investigation into the two works will provide us with some new insights into their literary charms. In this paper, the comparison is mainly carried out in terms of the setting of the story, plot, characters, and theme. Some elements in literary criticism such as structure, style and atmosphere are omitted here for they differ a lot in these aspects. Besides, it is a compromise for the sake of the limited space in