Monster

Chapter 33 - Analysis And Afterword

I. Analysis

1. The worlds created are real, not illusory

The worlds created by Feng Hua aren't dreams. He created the worlds in a large wasteland. Although the matter that constitutes the world are almost all replicas, we can see from the effect of the new world (the world in the final chapter) that these creatures have life. From this point of view, he is no different from the Creator. About the end of the world, time and so on, they've been clearly explained in the chapter "The Truth".

2. The structure of this text

Feng Hua can't accept Feng Yeran's death, so he chooses to forget Feng Yeran's death and the love connected with death, and chooses to use his painful obsession as a motivation to keep creating and destroying worlds. For him, love represents the end, and it is what he tries to forget and avoid. (see Chapter 31 Truth II for details)

The first part of this text, "The Wall" (Christmas 2232 to winter 2239), is a complete world created by Feng Hua. At the beginning of this world, the piece of rotting flesh already has a smell of burning, indicating that this isn't the first story created. At the end, Feng Hua burns everything. He generally creates worlds similar to "The Wall". The time may be longer or shorter, the storyline more or less distorted, and the events after the winter of 2239 mixed, but they all end in destruction.

"The Roof" is not a complete world, but more like source material. It is still partly true and partly false (the distortion is mainly at the end of the story). The white shadow (Feng Yeran's will) guides Feng Hua and lets him know that something else happened between the beginning of 2240 and July 2240.

"The Door and Window" is still not a complete world. For the source material, this part is almost true, but incomplete. With Feng Hua's perspective, the description spans from about September 2240 to January 2242. This period, in fact, is what Feng Hua resists describing the most, the part he chooses to forget. Feng Yeran died in December 2241, and he couldn't accept it at all. When he described it, he'd gone mad, so the time and logic were a bit disordered, which was rather stream-of-consciousness.

"The Chimney" is not a complete world. Time and space are chaotic. Feng Hua is in the wasteland (he creates worlds in the wasteland). He sees the end of the world (the worlds he created at that time, with his own perception as the end, also have the end of time, ending on the day of Feng Yeran's death). The rose garden and the castle are more like a combination of reality and illusion. The two cruel and sweet fairy tales of the chimney tell the story from different perspectives and tell Feng Hua what he'd always forgotten:

That is, in whichever world, in whichever material, he would have forgotten Feng Yeran's death, and the experience of being loved. And it was only by remembering it that he could get the key, truly build the house, gain the truth, and save himself.

Feng Yeran had tried to save him in other ways, such as making him lose his memory and so on, but failed. Finally, in order to stop his self-torturing obsession, Feng Yeran wrote the Golden Notebook, providing Feng Hua a blueprint to create a new world. In this world, the "monster who craved love but never got it" can truly get love, can obtain a lifetime of happiness, and fulfil their wishes.

3. In the created worlds, is Feng Yeran a new individual, or does he retain the emotions of the original "Feng Yeran"?

The answer to this is given by the conversation between the director and Old Zhang in the final chapter.

If you look closely at "The Wall", you will find Feng Yeran's "imposed emotions" mentioned in the text. For example, when he is confessed to by Feng Hua in front of the whole world, it reads:

"Ahhh, a voice was screaming and shouting inside his body. Not a voice of pain, but of ecstasy. A strange sense of ecstasy swelled and surged in his body, making him feel frightened. He rushed into the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror, and was almost startled. His face muscles rose and he was smiling, almost unbridled, exuberantly smiling, uncontrollable―it was clearly still his face, but he felt strange. He rinsed his face with cold water over and over again, trying to cool the inexplicable, imposed emotion. Within ten minutes, this bizarre emotion receded like a tidal wave. (Chapter 14 Temptation)"