Trickster Tales, usually ludicrous and humorous, refer to the constellation of tales about particular tricky figures. This type of tales is classified into H. Tests, J. The Wise & The Foolish and K. Deception in Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-literature and Antti Aarne’s The Types of the Folktale. The analysis of this type of tales in China starts from the mid-1920’s, characterized by the studies of Xu Wenchang’s tales. The term “Trickster tales” ( The literal meaning in Chinese is the Wise Figures’ tales) is first used by Qi Lianxiu, a researcher in the China Social Sciences Academy. The 1980’s and the 1990’s witness the most active and productive researches and results in this field. The national academic symposium held in 1984 is regarded as the landmark. Qi Lianxiu’s Wise Tricks and Quick Wit----Analysis of Chinese Trickster Tales published in 2001 is viewed as the comprehensive summary of the analysis in this field. Since 2001, there have been few research papers and works. After a careful scrutiny of the research done until today, the author of the dissertation thinks that the multi-facetted overt and covert cultural implications behind the trickster tales are not fully discussed. Taking the tales as the true happenings, the previous researchers have made their social criticism from the angle of class struggle. They have emphasized only the positive aspects of the tricksters, and regarded the figures as heroes of the common folks.
The author, by taking different approaches of cultural anthropology, post-historicism, post-structuralism and Bakhtin’s carnivalsque poetics, has made tentative efforts to have a broad revaluation of the tales. By exploring the playful and mischievous ruses, the humorous devices and the ambivalent characteristics manifested by the tricksters, the author intends to uncover the implicated social and cultural reasons that make the tales so widely transmitted, thus inviting the inspiration and consideration of the interactions between the solemnness of the conventional and cultural values and norms and the irrational and natural desire of human beings.
In the six chapters of the dissertation, the first one is a historical survey of this field. The author, after exploring the achievements and problems, has explained the new analytic approaches and the main arguments about the tales. In the second chapter, the author, by analyzing the typed and untyped trickster tales, has explored the overt and covert implications manifested in such tales, and the author has further discussed the significance by educing the generation and transmission of such tales. In the third chapter, the author has made a literal-social-cultural analysis from the social psychology by scrutinizing the subversiveness portrayed from the tales. The author has focused the attention on the self-estimated ethical and paranormal nature in the tales in contrast to the social moral judgment. The author has argued that the paranormal displayed by the traits of tricksters has many of the attributers of liminality, which is incompatible with the established conventions and institutions. In the fourth chapter, the author, by comparing and contrasting the paradoxical misbehaviour and the heroic traits of the tricksters, has further discussed the aesthetical values of such tales. After discussing and classifying the tricks and tactics, the author in the fifth chapter has discussed the influences of traditional Chinese culture to the popularity of such tales. Tactics and strategies have long been cherished in China. And there have always been many language games pertaining to the amphibolous and ambiguous nature of the Chinese language. In the last chapter, by taking the tales to the broad social-cultural structures, the author has examined the nature of the abnormal and subversive property, and has argued the subversiveness, in contrast, has reinforced the social conventions and institutions. The author has focused on discussion of the psychological and ideological nature portrayed from paradoxically overt rebellious mischievousness and the covert submissiveness of the tales.
Tricksters are the primordial beings and the mixture of id, ego and superego. They are indispensable in the maintenance and transformation of the social order. There will not be changes without the tricksters. In contrast, the tricksters reinforce the social status quo. The analysis of the trickster tales inspires our examination of the balance between the man-made orders and institutions drawn from our rational thinking and the irrational and instinctive nature of human beings. By discussing and analyzing the trickster tales, the author has constantly held the attention on the interaction and strife between our rational being, which is demonstrated by the public norms and irrational being by private and individual behaviors.
