人类学家认为不同的仪式行为反映出人类群体不同的文化思维方式,透过对仪式的解读,可以认识到他们的生存习性与文明发展模式。仪式与文学的共同之处在于表达人类复杂的诉求,触及心灵世界,并发挥特殊的社会功能。小说中的仪式书写不仅承担着文本对社会现实的“直接表现”,还起到了对社会文化“含蓄表现”的作用。仪式书写有多种存在方式,既具有符号的象征意义,又具有文化认同的功能。
Anthropologists hold that different ceremonies reflect different cultural and thinking modes of communities; and through interpretations to ceremonies, we can have cognizance of their life styles and civilization development modes. The common point between ceremony and literature is they can express complicated wishes and touch the inner world of human beings, and therefore play a role of "implicitly manifesting" social culture. Ceremony writing has many modes with symbolic meaning of tokens and the function of cultural identity.