Abstract

Washington Irving is one of the most popular writers in the history of American literature. In his lifetime, he was escaping frequently, which in a way，had effect on the forming of his escapism that was partly presented in his famous work, Rip Van Winkle. In the short novel, escape is the most obvious theme. Out of similar theme of escape, the Chinese story, Wang Zhi Lan Ke was written in the totally different times. They both share the theme of escape but differ in reasons. In order to explore further, this thesis will be divided into seven parts. The first part is the introduction, which mainly introduces the backgrounds of Rip Van Winkle and Wang Zhi Lan Ke and the purpose of the research. The second part is about literature review. The third and fourth part is about the sources of escapism at different times in the two stories. The fifth part gives the reasons for Rip’s escape and the sixth part gives the reasons of Wang Zhi’s escape as well as analysis. The last part is a conclusion.

The thesis aims to analyze different reasons of escapes in Rip Van Winkle and Wang Zhi Lan Ke from the perspective of escapism, to assist in understanding the magic of analogous methods and plots adopted by writers from totally different backgrounds to record the then social situations. Also, through the comparison, people can find the initiative and passive emotions of two escapes combined with social situations and think deeper about their present life. 

Key words：compare；escapism；reason；thinking

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1.-Introduction-1

1.1 Washington Irving and his Rip Van Winkle-1

1.2 Escapism and Wang Zhi Lan Ke-1

1.3 The purpose of the research-2

2. The sources of Washington Irving’s escapism-4

2.1 The social sources-4

2.2 His family sources-4

3.The source of escapism in Wang Zhi Lan Ke-6

4. Reasons of escape in Rip Van Winkle-7

4.1 Escape from family duty-7

4.1.1 Frigidity of responsibilities of a husband-7

4.1.2-Ignorance of responsibilities of a father-9

4.2 Escape from society duty-10

4.2.1 Indifference of responsibilities of a citizen-10

5.-Reasons of escape in Wang Zhi Lan Ke-11

5.1 Pursuit for peace-11

5.2 Pursuit for Taoism-11

6.-Conclusion-13

References-14