This research investigates Arthur Waley's abridged translation of *Journey to the West*, known as *Monkey*, focusing on how his translation choices reframed the narrative of the "magic wind." *Journey to the West* is a complex Chinese epic blending mythology, religious allusions (Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism), and satire. Its narrative richness presents a challenge for translation, as evidenced by the ongoing debate surrounding its interpretation. Previous translations have been categorized into phases: fragmentation, distortion, restoration, and new refraction. Waley's *Monkey*, despite being labeled as a "distortion" or employing a "secularized approach," significantly influenced Western audiences and academic discourse, becoming a cornerstone for subsequent translations. Existing scholarship has analyzed Waley's translation strategies in terms of domestication versus foreignization, colloquial style, readability, and socio-cultural aspects, but a detailed narrative inquiry into his abridgment, particularly concerning the cultural mediation and conflicts stemming from it, remains relatively unexplored. This study bridges translation strategy research and literary study by utilizing narrative theory to examine how Waley's choices reshaped the narrative of the magic wind.

The study draws upon narratology, encompassing both classical (structuralist) and postclassical (social) approaches. Structuralist narratology focuses on the formal features of literary texts, analyzing the 'story' (events, actions, agents) and 'discourse' (arrangement and representation of the story). Previous narrative studies of *Journey to the West* have explored its generic features (God and Evil Spirit Novel), the protagonist's development, the interpretation of female demons through religious and feminist lenses, and artful naming of characters. However, supernatural elements like the magic wind have received less attention. The social narrative paradigm, in contrast, examines ideological concerns within narratives and how translation acts as a form of (re)framing, renegotiating the source text's narrativity to create a politically charged narrative in the target context. This approach is useful in revealing "accurate translations, but suspicious frames." The study utilizes Liu's (2017) analysis of *A Mission to Heaven*—a Christianized rewrite of *Journey to the West*—as a methodological starting point, identifying similar reframing strategies in Waley's work, such as temporal and spatial reframing, selective appropriation, and framing by labeling.

The research employs an eclectic model combining structuralist and social narrative paradigms. The structuralist paradigm informs the analysis of narrative content and verbal arts (flashbacks, flashforwards, narrator tone), while the social paradigm focuses on revealing reframing strategies and their effects. The analysis begins with an exhaustive study of the magic wind's narrativity in the source text, identifying its functions (destruction, transportation, transformation, flashforward) and categorizing its occurrences (story, discourse, mixed modes). This detailed corpus-based close reading contrasts with previous studies relying on selective argumentation. The study then examines Waley's reframing strategies: temporal and spatial reframing (considering the context of World War II), selective appropriation (analyzing omitted and retained episodes and their impact on the narrative), and labeling (comparing Waley's labels for magic wind with those in other translations using a parallel corpus tool). The analysis uses radar graphs to visualize the distribution of magic wind subtypes in the source and target texts. The paper also considers how Waley's choices impacted ontological, public, conceptual, and meta-narratives within the story.

The analysis of the source text reveals the multifaceted narrativity of the magic wind, encompassing destruction, transportation, transformation, and flashforward functions. Waley's *Monkey*, however, significantly diminishes the narratives of destruction and transformation. This is attributed to several reframing strategies: 1. **Temporal and Spatial Reframing:** Waley's translation, undertaken during World War II, embedded the narrative within the socio-political context of wartime Britain. The emphasis on the pilgrims' heroism and optimism resonated with the needs of the time. 2. **Selective Appropriation:** Waley's abridgment selectively retained episodes emphasizing the pilgrims' success in rescuing people from demons, omitting many other aspects. This choice streamlined the narrative but sacrificed the original's rich cultural and religious tapestry. 3. **Labelling:** Waley's translation generalized labels for the magic wind, often substituting common terms for specific, culturally significant ones. His omission of wind narratives from verse and couplets further reduced its symbolic weight, simplifying and deculturalizing the narrative. The analysis using a Chinese-English parallel corpus shows Waley's consistent omission or simplification of terms related to the magic wind, particularly those connected to traditional Chinese concepts (Eight Trigrams, Yin-Yang). The study shows that Waley's abridgment significantly altered the narrative, simplifying it and reducing the cultural specificity of the original. While increasing readability, it decreased the depth and complexity of the original's interwoven religious and cultural elements.

The findings demonstrate how Waley's translation choices, driven by both textual considerations (readability, accessibility) and contextual factors (the war), profoundly altered the narrative of *Journey to the West*. The study highlights how an abridged translation, even one aiming for accuracy, inevitably involves ideological mediation and reframing. Waley's selective appropriation and de-culturalizing strategies resulted in a version that, while accessible to a Western audience, lost much of the source text's rich cultural and religious nuances. The loss of the meta-narrative (religious fusion) and conceptual narratives (Yin-Yang, Eight Trigrams) transforms *Monkey* from a complex cultural mosaic into a simpler collection of adventures. This study underscores the importance of considering the translator's role not just as a linguistic mediator but also as a cultural interpreter whose choices shape the narrative and its reception.

This research contributes to translation studies by offering a detailed narrative inquiry into Waley's *Monkey*. It demonstrates how the translator's choices, influenced by both textual and contextual factors, significantly reframe the source text. The study highlights the importance of analyzing not only what is omitted or emphasized but also the underlying ideological considerations driving those choices. Future research could explore similar narrative reframing in other translations of *Journey to the West*, or examine the impact of Waley's translation on subsequent adaptations and interpretations of the story. Further investigation could analyze other aspects of the narrative affected by Waley's abridgment and translation choices.

The study focuses specifically on the narrative of the magic wind, limiting the scope of the overall analysis of Waley's translation. Future research could broaden the scope to include a wider range of narrative elements. The study primarily relies on two existing English translations (Jenner's and Yu's) for comparison, which may influence the interpretation of Waley's choices. A more comprehensive analysis could include a wider range of translations. The corpus analysis focusing on the term ‘巽’ could be further expanded to include other culturally significant terms related to the magic wind.