Interpreting and Deconstructing: On the Translation of and Introduction to Journey to the West by Hayes

Among the English versions of Journey to the West, The Buddhist Pilgrim’s Progress by Helen M. Hayes is full of allusions, comparisons, comments and other contents different from the original work, which makes it difficult for the academic community to classify it into any conventional type of translation. This article argues that, Hayes, with such strategies as “translating”, “commenting” and “writing”, realized her unique interpretation and deconstruction of the original novel in the context featuring various power discourses through building intertextuality, reshaping characters and deleting plots, which thus justifies the enlightening significance of this version to the translation and the early cross-cultural spread of Chinese literary classics in a foreign culture.