Literary Analysis
Dominant themes of the novel include: the rise and fall of the ideal liege (Liu Bei) finding the ideal minister (Zhuge Liang); the conflict between the ideal liege (Liu Bei) and the consummate villain (Cao Cao); and the cruelties and injustice of feudal or dynastic government.
Critics have argued that Luo Guanzhong's initial pronouncement "It is a general truism of this world that anything long divided will surely unite, and anything long united will surely divide" epitomizes the main theme of the novel. Taking this as a locus for study of the classic has been disputed, however. Further, "division" and "unity" for Luo are not of equal importance. Though the work shows the journey from unity to division in the final years of the Han Dynasty, that is only the beginning of the book. "The author expended most of his ink on the focal point of his description—the difficult transition from 'division' to 'unity' and the great achievements that came out of the bitter struggle by various heroes to reunify the Chinese empire."
Besides the famous oath, many Chinese proverbs in use today are derived from the novel:
| Translation | Chinese | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Brothers are like limbs, wives are like clothing. Torn clothing can be repaired; how can broken limbs be mended? | 兄弟如手足，妻子如衣服。衣服破，尚可縫； 手足斷，安可續？ |
It means that wives, like clothing, are replaceable if lost but the same does not hold true for one's brothers (or friends). |
| Liu Bei "borrows" Jing Province – borrowing without returning. | 劉備借荊州——有借無還 | This proverb describes the situation of a person borrowing something without ever returning it. |
| Speak of Cao Cao and Cao Cao arrives. | 說曹操，曹操到 說曹操曹操就到 |
Equivalent to speak of the devil. Describes the situation of a person appearing precisely when being spoken about. |
| Three reeking tanners (are enough to) overcome one Zhuge Liang. | 三個臭皮匠, 勝過一個諸葛亮 三個臭皮匠, 賽過一個諸葛亮 |
Three inferior people can overpower a superior person when they combine their strengths. |
| Losing the wife and having the army crippled. (The "wife" lost here was actually Sun Quan's sister. Zhou Yu's plan to capture Liu Bei by means of a false marriage proposal failed and the women became Liu's actual wife after Zhou's defeat. See the next proverb below.) | 賠了夫人又折兵 | Making double losses in a deal or losing on both sides of it. |
| Eastern Wu arranges a false marriage that turns into a real one. | 東吳招親——弄假成真 | When a plan to falsely offer something backfires with the result that the thing originally offered is appropriated by the intended victim of the hoax. |
| The young shouldn't read Water Margin, and the old shouldn't read Three Kingdoms. | 少不讀水滸, 老不讀三國 | The former depicts the lives of outlaws and their defiance of the social system and may have a negative influence on adolescent boys, as well as the novel's depiction of gruesome violence. The latter presents every manner of stratagem and fraud and may tempt older readers to engage in such thinking. |
The writing style adopted by Romance of the Three Kingdoms was part of the emergence of written vernacular during the Ming period, as part of the so-called "Four Masterworks" (si da qishu).
Read more about this topic: Romance Of The Three Kingdoms
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