The Journey to the West's leading role must belong to the Monkey King. In order to introduce the Monkey King's life experience, the whole book uses as many as seven chapters, that is, the first seven chapters of the book are all about the Monkey King: the Monkey King was born of stones, and then he took pains to learn the immortal method in order to live forever. He sailed across the ocean thousands of miles by himself in a boat, and finally he found a master, Bodhi, in the Samsung Cave in the oblique moon of Mount Zhongnan, and was lucky to be accepted as his apprentice. Because the Monkey King's intelligence is a material that can be made, his ancestors loved it very much, and secretly gave him a small stove. In private, he taught the Monkey King Taoism and taught the Monkey King all the powerful means: seventy-two kinds of changes, somersault clouds, one somersault is 18, miles, and so on.
When the Monkey King's skill acquisition was almost the same, the founder Xu Bodhi found a fault at random and drove the Monkey King out of the mountain gate. The Monkey King went back to Huaguoshan, where he got the golden cudgel from the Dragon Palace and drew a life and death book from the underworld. He wanted to destroy it, but the Taibai Venus came out to mediate, so as to woo the Monkey King. The Monkey King is also willing to be wooed. After all, he wants to go to heaven to have fun after playing enough on earth. He also feels that he has high skills, and it is natural to recognize an official position in heaven.
When he came to the Heavenly Palace, the Jade Emperor asked the elected official what position he could do for the Monkey King. Next to him, he turned to Wu Quxing Jun and told the Jade Emperor, "There are many officials in all the palaces and temples in the Heavenly Palace, but the Imperial Horse Supervisor is short of a stall manager." As soon as the Jade Emperor heard it, he said, OK, just be a Bi Mawen for the Monkey King.
What is this official position of Bi Mawen? To put it bluntly, he is the head of horse watching. According to the horse watchers of the Royal Horse Warden, Bi Mawen is small, so don't be in a small office!
So is it true that there is no official position in heaven that can be awarded to the Monkey King? Actually, it is not. The heaven is so big. Every year, there are many people who ask for immortals, either becoming immortals or gods. Every year, they change their official positions, or they have new positions for new immortals. How can there be no vacant office? In fact, to put it bluntly, the Jade Emperor of Heaven and Wu Quxing Jun are illiterate, and they don't know what the Monkey King's real skills are, so they don't decide their positions according to their abilities.
and the Monkey King? Empty skills, there is no good talent in heaven, and talents are not known or appreciated by others, so it is inevitable that they will not be reused.
In fact, there is a strong metaphor for arranging the Monkey King to be Bi Mawen. What happened to the Monkey King here is actually the author Wu Cheng'en's metaphor that he can't be reused in reality.
Wu Cheng'en was a clever child prodigy when he was a child, and his academic performance was very good. He studied very hard when he was a child. He is very good at learning. He can read a book with ten lines, and he can recite it fluently if he never forgets anything. Not only that, Wu Cheng'en is also very good at other aspects. His calligraphy, his poems and his Weiqi are all first-class. Wu Cheng'en became famous in his hometown when he was a teenager.
Later, Wu Cheng'en took part in the imperial examination, but he was always very disappointed. What kind of official position could he live in? However, the decadent feudal imperial examination system (stereotyped writing for selecting officials) and the darkness of officialdom in the real society made Wu Cheng'en get a one-year-old tribute student when he was 44 years old. Later, when he came to Beijing to wait for the allocation of official positions, he had no background relationship and was not selected. Later, I "picked up" a county official.
Wu Cheng'en's officialdom was frustrated, but only those who had ambitions had nowhere to recover and could not be reused, so Wu Cheng'en resigned and returned to his hometown to stay away from his official career.
When you see this, do you find that the Monkey King's experience is very similar to that of Wu Cheng'en's life? He was talented but not appreciated and brought into full play. After that, he "picked up" an official position the size of sesame and mung beans.
So in the end, the Monkey King (Wu Cheng'en) went down to heaven to live a carefree life instead of Bi Mawen (Wu Cheng'en resigned and returned to his hometown). The Monkey King did Bi Mawen. In fact, it is not that there is no other official position in heaven, but that there is no background, and no one appreciates his skills. the Monkey King is the epitome of Wu Cheng'en, and Wu Cheng'en uses the Monkey King to explain his experiences. In fact, Bi Mawen was deliberately arranged by Wu Cheng'en for the Monkey King, insinuating the decay of the feudal imperial examination system (stereotyped writing for scholars), and talented people could not get rid of it! (Text: Pan Regret the Past)