Relationship of Journey to the West by Wu Chung'en to Historical Events

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Reading Response – Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en
Understanding the relationship between the literary pieces and historical events is essential for anyone. It allows him to appreciate the underlying context of the story better and critically analyze the actions of individual characters that make up the story. Accordingly, one of the most popular stories that originated from Ancient China that have existed until these days is the story of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong. His story, character, and persona have inspired popular culture by creating stories, films, and books primarily based on the Monkey King's mischievous character. However, this mythology originally stemmed from Wu Cheng'en's book entitled Journey to the West during the 16th Century. Similar to the conception of the Monkey King in the present popular culture, it could be seen that Cheng'en's book is laden with satire that reflects reality.
Satirical Approach
One of the main satirical themes that could be seen from the book Journey to the West is the presence of satirical themes that reflect society during the early days. Remarkably, a careful reading of the story would suggest symbolic parallelism between the Chinese government back in the days and the idea of the Jade emperor and the heavenly kingdom. One of the reasons the Emperor is depicted similar to the head of the Chinese Empire back then was Cheng'en's description of his absolute power over others. Specifically, he said that;
Greatly Compassionate Jade Emperor of the Azure Vault of Heaven was sitting on his throne in the Hall of Miraculous Mist in the Golden−gated Cloud Palace, surrounded by his immortal civil and military officials at morning court CITATION Che11 \l 1033 (Cheng'en).
This phrase was an exact representation of the Chinese Empire's court, wherein the Emperor was always surrounded by his military officials, advisers, and servants in the court.
However, while Cheng'en's approach to the depiction of the government was symbo...