《金瓶梅》的死亡书写是它的一大特色，也是读者把握其文本整体意蕴、理解人物行为逻辑的钥匙。与欲望书写相比，死亡书写相对不那么受到研究者的重视，但其实，二者的关系如同色与空一般，须臾不可分离。如果《金瓶梅》的欲望书写不是在“人终有一死”这样的存在情境中展开的，那它必然不可能到达如此的深度，因此研究《金》中的死亡书写就尤其重要。这种死亡书写，在题材内容上表现为对小人之死的关注，在叙事手法与艺术风格上则表现为反讽。本文第一章从死亡情节的功能入手，将《金瓶梅》与《水浒传》、《三言二拍》中的死亡情节进行比较，在归纳出从“炫示杀人者的力量”到“成就理想人格”等六种不同的功能之后，指出《金瓶梅》中主要人物的死亡超越了功能性，而上升至主体地位,于是出现了第七种情况，作为存在之终结的死亡。第二章里，本文对李瓶儿、西门庆和潘金莲等主要人物死亡时的关键场景进行细读，集中处理其中的反讽问题。《金瓶梅》的反讽在形式层面表现为对浪漫抒情模式和劝善模式的戏仿，在思想内容方面则是对伦理意识和超脱意识的双重质疑与否定，因此，《金瓶梅》中最为杰出的死亡情节达到了存在论的高度，它们揭示出了“在世”这一根本的残酷且荒诞的处境。但如此全面的否定并非《金瓶梅》内在意蕴的全部，在这些严肃的死亡情节之后，文本的叙事仍在继续前进。第三章中，本文从《金瓶梅》的读者接受入手，探究袁宏道等精英读者在评论中表现出来的复杂态度，即审美快感与道德焦虑的交织，以观察《金瓶梅》的死亡反讽是如何穿透文本，指向一种更为广阔深沉的历史文化语境：它在某种程度上构成了一种对读者袁宏道的生命预言，而袁本人在阅读中并没有意识到这一点，由此形成了一种历史性的反讽。袁宏道的视而不见根植于儒家文化发展到心学阶段高涨的道德自信和对欲望的轻视，儒家士人们以道德本能为“不容已”之心，拒绝将私欲视为人的本质，即便在以庶民性、日常性闻名的泰州学派内部也是如此。与李贽的立场相似，《金瓶梅》在书写中打破了这种道德自信，而将“以私为心”作为自己的叙事前提，由此铺开的“小人之死”主题恰与当时流行的“圣人之死”形成针对，但又与李贽提出的“丈夫之死”有所不同。第四章揭示了《金瓶梅》在结尾处如何超越全面深刻的反讽，最终达到的不是虚无，而是对生命的无条件肯定。本文将《金瓶梅》中轮回情节与其他文本中的轮回进行比较，并对这一场景进行了文本细读，最终论证其中对生命的无条件肯定态度正是《金瓶梅》在否定中前进的思想动力，因此《金瓶梅》并不是一部虚无的现实主义作品，而是一曲与生命达成和解的哀歌。

The writing of death in Jinpingmei is one of its major features, and it is also the key for readers to grasp the overall meaning of the text and understand the logic of the characters' behavior. Compared with the writing of desire, the writing of death is relatively less emphasized by researchers, but in fact, the relationship between the two is as inseparable as color and emptiness. If the writing of desire in Jinpingmei is not unfolded in the existential situation of "people will die", it is impossible to reach such a depth, so it is especially important to study the writing of death in Jinpingmei. This kind of death writing, in terms of the content of the subject matter, manifests itself as a concern for the death of the villains, while in terms of narrative technique and artistic style, it manifests itself as irony. The first chapter of this paper starts from the function of the death plot, comparing the death plot in Jinpingmei with that in Water Margin and Three Words and Two Beats, and after summarizing six different functions, from "showing off the power of the murderer" to "realizing the ideal personality", it is pointed out that the main functions of the death plot in Jinpingmei are to show off the power of the murderer, to show off the power of the murderer and to realize the ideal personality, to show that the death plot in Jinpingmei is not only to show the power of the murderer but also to fulfill the ideal personality. After summarizing six different functions, ranging from "showing off the power of the murderer" to "realizing the ideal personality," the paper points out that the deaths of the major characters in Jinpingmei transcend functionality and rise to the status of the subject, and a seventh situation, death as the end of existence, emerges. In the second chapter, the paper reads the key scenes of the deaths of the main characters, such as Li Baili, Ximen Qing, and Pan Jinlian, and concentrates on the problem of irony in them. Irony in Jinpingmei is expressed at the formal level as a parody of the romantic lyric and persuasive modes, and at the level of ideological content as a double questioning and denial of ethical and transcendental consciousness. But such a comprehensive denial is not the entirety of Jinpingmei's inherent meaning; after these serious episodes of death, the text's narrative continues to move forward. In the third chapter, this paper begins with the readerly reception of Jinpingmei, exploring the complex attitudes of Yuan Hongdao and other elite readers, namely the intertwining of aesthetic pleasure and moral anxiety, in the commentary, in order to observe how the deathly irony of Jinpingmei penetrates the text, pointing to a wider and deeper historical and cultural context: it constitutes to some extent a kind of prophecy on the life of the reader, Yuan Hongdao, which Yuan himself does not realize in the course of his reading. Yuan himself does not realize this in his reading, thus creating a kind of historical irony. Yuan Hongdao's blindness is rooted in the high moral confidence and contempt for desire that characterized the development of Confucian culture to the stage of teleology, in which Confucian scholars took moral instincts as the heart of the "inadmissible" and refused to see selfish desire as the essence of human beings, even within the Taizhou school, which was known for its populist and everyday nature. Similar to Li Zhi's position, Jinpingmei breaks this moral self-confidence in its writing and takes "selfishness as the heart" as the premise of its own narrative, thus opening up the theme of "the death of the villain" against the popular "death of the saint" at the time. The theme of "the death of the villain" is precisely the same as that of "the death of the saint", which was popular at that time, but different from the "death of the hero" proposed by Li Zhi. Chapter 4 reveals how Jinpingmei transcends comprehensive and profound irony in its conclusion, ultimately achieving not nothingness but the unconditional affirmation of life. This paper compares the reincarnation episode in Jinpingmei with reincarnation in other texts and provides a close reading of the scene, ultimately arguing that the unconditional affirmation of life is the ideological impetus for Jinpingmei to move forward in the midst of negativity, and that Jinpingmei is therefore not a work of nihilistic realism, but rather a dirge of reconciliation with life.