目连救母故事的情节类型及其生长机制

Type of Plot in the Story of Mu Lian Saving his Mother and the Mechanism of Development

目连救母这样的入冥故事具有世界性和古老性。从神话、史诗中搜集到的该类型的例证,分析可得该主题下的两类单体故事以及更次一级的型式类别,并在情节序列上考察目连救母故事的组构情况,总结得出“复合起点”、“反复再现”、“异型融合”和“旁支扩张”四种生长机制,以期从一个侧面说明该故事持续生长并构成超长篇规模的内在原理。

The story of Mu Lian saving his mother has a global and ancient meaning. By analyzing the examples from fairytales and epics, we can get two single stories and the inferior type of this theme and by studying the arrangement of the story from the order of the plot, we can get four mechanisms of development ： multiple starting points ; reoccurrence ; heterozygosis and branch expansion, which explain the inherent principle for a continual development and super length of the story.