Images of Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctors in Chinese Literature

Abstract

Since ancient times, doctors have usually played the image of rescuers who save lives. As a symbol-rich image, "doctor" often enters the scope of writers' creativity and becomes a typical creative theme. This paper explores the image of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctors in literature. The purpose of the study is to understand how TCM practitioners are portrayed and represented in literature, to analyze their social and cultural influence and their impact on people's perceptions and attitudes towards TCM. The relevance of this article is that it can help people to better understand the position and image of TCM in different historical periods and cultural environments, as well as its relationship with society, culture and people's lives. The subject of this paper is the image of TCM doctors in literary works of a certain period, region or cultural context such as ancient works, modern literary works and works of specific writers. By analyzing the images in different works, the diversity of such images of TCM physicians such as wise doctors and mysterious healers can be demonstrated. This paper uses methods of literary analysis, including close reading of the text, character analysis, plot and theme study. The text is also studied in the context of historical and cultural context to understand the views and attitudes of the society of the time towards TCM and doctors. The scientific novelty of studying the image of traditional Chinese medicine in Chinese literature gives us an interdisciplinary perspective that integrates literature with medicine and cultural studies and offers new ways to deeply understand TCM culture and human perception of health. The results of the study indicate the diversity of TCM physicians' images in the literature. In addition, the findings may reflect different understandings and evaluations of TCM in different periods and cultural contexts.