The Chinese mythological archetypes of images in Rebecca Kuang’s novel The Poppy War
The article focuses on the study of Chinese mythological archetypes in R. F. Kuang’s trilogy The Poppy War, that contribute to a deeper understanding of the cultural and psychological aspects of the novels. The Poppy War, as a good example of the contemporary fantasy genre, is understudied in the context of Jungian analysis. The problem arises from the need to reveal the integration of mythological archetypes in the narrative’s structure and the archetype’s nominations impact on the characters’ storyline interpretation. The research is carried out using Jungian hermeneutics, analytical psychology, and the interpretative strategies of E. M. Meletinsky and E. Neumann. The authors come to the conclusion that key Chinese mythological archetypes such as the Dragon, the Phoenix, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie and Nüwa play a significant role in shaping the characters and the plot of the trilogy. Particular attention is given to the main character, Fang Runin, whose evolution personifies the Phoenix archetype. The heroine, rejecting femininity, follows the path of the Warrior, her journey is characterized by the search and interaction with such archetypes as the Shadow and the Animus leading to her personal transformation. Thus, the traditional Chinese mythological archetypes behave simultaneously as the Shadow and the Animus in the character’s psyche, creating a specific combination and shaping the narrative. The integration of mythological elements in The Poppy War gives the trilogy a deep symbolic richness and multi-layeredness that proves that the archetypal components of traditional Chinese culture and the Chinese heroic archetype influence modernity.
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Alekseeva, O. P., Ivanova, O. I. (2026). The Chinese mythological archetypes of images in Rebecca Kuang’s novel The Poppy War, Research Result. Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, 12 (1), 262–276.
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Corpus materials
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