Journey to the West. Cpht 1

When I read the introduction to the story, I wasn’t looking forward to reading the poems inside the story. I never understood poetry and could never analyze it deeply; it is basically my least favorite writing style to read. The story gave me a different feeling and the poetry seemed less scary. I feel the author used poetry in the text for the purpose of strengthening the imagery.
Reading this text I think that it is a lot different from Voltaire’s Candide. Voltaire tries to make his story come to life with everything that has happened, he tried to make a real, believable story. Wu Cheng’en in my opinion did the opposite and went away from the realistic story. I think this makes the story stronger because the author can use anything and everything to enforce her story, to prove her points because the author isn’t bound to keeping it real. The first chapter to me was still a little confusing as to the whole point of the story, but I guess that’s why there are more chapter to come.