On Tian Han’s Intertextual Narration of“Theme Expressed by Drama”——A Case Study of Death of a Famous Actor

Tian Han was closely related with the traditional Chinese operas in all his life.And the elements of operas can be found in his large amount of drama works.In Death of a Famous Actor, he adopted the“play in plays”and inserted the three opera selections of Oulong House, Yutang Chun and A Fisherman’s Revenge, which is in accordance with the actors’ identities in the opera, shows the interwoven emotional relationships among characters, and sets a metaphor for their fate.The employment of these selections not only corresponds to the theme of the drama, but plays the role of adding a crucial touch.The permeation and interlacing between the two promote the plot development, and hence have achieved the intertextual effect of theme expressed by drama, which helps to sublime the drama’s gist and make its content even more profound.