Postmodernism And China In The New Period Novel

The past half century has witnessed the gradual rising of the thought ofPostmodernism in the western countries, which has great impact on the fields ofPhilosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Literature, Architectureand Art in respect of research and creation with its strong penetration anddiffusivity, and Postmodernism has already became an hot issue or even the focusof the above fields. Ever since the beginning of 1980s, the thought ofPostmodernism started to be introduced into China from the western countries, andall kinds of related theories and works, as well as literary writings ofPostmodernism, were translated and presented to researchers and creators of worksof literature and art of modern China. In the specific fields of Literature and Art, inregard to the huge concept system of Postmodernism which includescomprehensive contents, attentions should be paid to the actuality and significanceof its infiltration, extension and interpretation to the field of Literature, discussionsshould be made in term of the relation of Postmodernist thought and thedevelopment of Literature in the new period of modern China, so that we can havemore comprehensive and deeper observation and understanding on the creation andresearch of Chinese modern Literature in the new period. From mid-1980s, thisnew period of Chinese Literature has been witnessing the constant appearance ofliteral works with some postmodernist features and colors; at the same time,Postmodernism has become an significant theoretical reference for numerousscholars to express their comments and carry on their study. With the occurrence ofthis phenomenon, large numbers of issues are worthy of discussion come into oursight.This paper takes postmodernist features and colors in fictions of the newperiod as main reflecting and discussing objects, and starts from combinations of the two dimensions of theoretical analysis and creative practice. Using the Westernpostmodern theories as a new reference in the analysis of creative practices offictions in the new period, with a close reading of the text, this paper makes anin-depth exploration of the interactive relationship between WesternPostmodernism and Chinese literary theory and literary creations in the newperiod.The entire paper combs the spread of Western Postmodernism incontemporary China, as well as Chinese novel creators, literary critics andresearchers'accepting, absorbing, learning and integrating of the postmodernistliterary and cultural thought, attempts to explore the Western Postmodernismtrends'present or potential impact on fiction evolution in the new period, andoverviews the mirrored presentation of the new period fictions'reflection ofpostmodernism spiritual characteristic in themes about"human","society","history","culture"and"gender". On this basis, the paper tries to construct amacro theoretical analysis perspective in order to examine the impact of WesternPostmodernism trends and inspirits the objective and positive significance for thenew period fictions, and at the main time, makes a rational analysis of WesternPostmodernism trends'negative impacts on the new period fiction creations.Through a full range of in-depth analysis, the paper attempts to summarize thevalues and existing problems of the new period fictions with postmodernistfeatures, and to make possible discussions about how to reconstruct modernChinese literature's literary rationality, literary spirit, and literary virtue as well asliterary ideal.The first chapter"The Dissemination of Postmodernism in China"providestheoretical premises including concept clarification for comprehensive discussionof the paper, and defines the paper's subject and scope and overviews interactiverelationships among Western Postmodernism trends, the new period fiction creation and literary criticism. This chapter is divided into four sections. The maincontents of the first section"Overview of the Postmodernism and Its LiteraryTrends"is to clarify the connotation and extension of the concept of"postmodernism", summarizes the postmodernism literary trends'major schoolsand representative writers and postmodernism literature's basic theory of ideas andliterary features by the help of origin explorations and occurrence methods. Themain content of the second section"Western Postmodernism Literature andLiterary Trends'Spread in China"is to comb information about how westernPostmodernism trends, especially its literary and cultural trends, were introducedto China since 1980s. The third section"Impacts of Western PostmodernismLiterature and Cultural Trends on New Period Literary World"is a brief summaryof Western Postmodernism literature and cultural trends'impacts on the new periodfiction creations and literary criticism practices. The fourth section"Postmodernism's Self-adaptive Development in Chinese New Period Context"isa brief analysis of the development process of the new period literatures withpostmodernist features, including fictions, from"imports"to autonomous growth.The second chapter"Evolutions of Postmodernism Literature andTransmutations of Concept of the New Period Fictions"generally overviews thefundamental transmutations of the new period fictions taking place in the conceptlevel, showing the concept characterization of Postmodernism which mainlyreflected in three levels, including interpretation of the novel ontology, extensionof the novel narrative and discussion of the novel axiology. Postmodernism theoryand trends deeply changed the modern Chinese novel concept and highlighted thefar-reaching implication and repercussions of the"post"of"modernism"onChinese literary world. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section"Interpretation of Novel Ontology: Conversion From the Function Carrier to theAesthetic Object"discuses the new period novel ontology based on aesthetic object, points out that the new period novel ontology is under the exposure of fission froma function carrier in social and cultural dimension to a aesthetic object in aestheticsand literature dimension. The second section"Extension of Narrative Theory:Breakthrough from Methodology to Ontology"focuses on the issue of narrativetheory, points out that in the process of imitating, learning from the westernpostmodernism literature and independent innovation by its inspirations, the newperiod fiction has made wider breakthrough and extension of the traditionalnarrative methodology and reflected distinctive characteristic of the promotion ofnarrative from a writing method to the creative ontological significance on theaspect of text de-subjectivalization, narrative collage crushing and fracture,language structure collage, plot drift, and digestion boundaries. The third section"Discussion of the Novel Axiology: Trade-off of Utilitarian Value and AestheticValue"mainly discusses the changes of novel axiology in the new period, pointsout that new period novel with postmodernist features'cognition to the novel valuewalks between"use"and"beauty"; on one hand, it has new extensions on"use"byabandoning traditional novel's macro utilitarian value dimensions, on the otherhand, it has a deep and new understanding of the divers aesthetic value of thenovel.The third chapter"Postmodernist Image in the New Period Fictions"mainlydiscusses the new period novel writers'initiative learning, enlightenment andinspiration of the Western Postmodernism literature, combination of specific socialcontext in the new period, and thinking and writing about the postmodernity ofmajor literary propositions related with human, society, history, culture and gender.The first section"'Human'in Works of Fictions: Individual Survival Subjects orPlanar Existing Symbol"has a summarized analysis on the symbolic peeling ofspecific group or spiritual concept, digestion of spiritual beliefs and the ultimatemeaning, irrationality of survival status and life experience, fragmentation and illegibility of the character which are all presented by characters in new periodnovels with postmodernist features. The second section"Society'in Works ofFictions: Planar, Fractured and Orectic Transforming Society"takes contrastinganalysis of the transitional social soil breeding postmodernism, reflects theprojection of the planar, fractured and orectic transforming society in new periodfictions with postmodernist features. The third section"'History'in Works ofFictions: Deconstruction the Re-discovery after Grand Narratives"focuses oncreations of historical themed fictions with postmodernist features, overviews theirtheoretical preparation and era heritage, summarize their historical narrativewalking between fiction and reality, draws historical images through personalperspective, such as uses the accidental and non-rational uncertainty to digest thenatural regularity of history, uses personal history picture to subvert the collectivehistorical memory, uses marginalization digging to replace the orthodoxmainstream attention. The fourth section"'Culture'in Works of Fictions:Diversified Show Dispelling the Dominant Cultural Centre"explores by theinspiring influence of western postmodernism, the new period fictions withpostmodernist features reflect the opening development trends that the writers arere-examining and rethinking the national and social long-term major culture alongwith the profound changes of the era, and trying to build a pluralistic culture fusionby literary creations. The fifth section"'Gender'in Works of Fictions: Highlight ofFemale Consciousness in Gender Relations"surveys the western feminist theory,overviews several aspects of postmodernist presentations in new period feministnovels including revolutionizes the traditional female tags in the Masculinediscourse system, highlights women's main consciousness in survival plight,digests women's spontaneous choice obscured by grand narrative, abandons themale-centered women self-world construction.The fourth chapter"Postmodernist Features of the New Period Fictions"tries to generally summarize the new period fictions with postmodernist features'creative concept, literary pursuit, text structure and narrative feature from theaspects of creative perspective, narrative concept, aesthetic position, plotpresentation, spatial and temporal structure, narrative point and presentation skills.Creative perspective of the new period fictions with postmodernist features isbased on "physical" taking place the "metaphysical" myth. Narrative concept of thenew period fictions with postmodernist features performs as anti-traditionalprocessing of the relationship between reality and fiction, including transferringfiction from potential to present and combining screens of Photographic-stylerealism and subjective performance. Aesthetic stance of the new period fictionswith postmodernist features performs as subversion and breakthrough of aestheticawareness and paradigm of traditional fictions by initiative "Ugliness" in aestheticchoosing. Presentation of plot in the new period fictions with postmodernistfeatures breaks the"causes-development-ending"coherent structure in traditionalfiction plots and chooses to use fragmented clips or opening structures withoutorigin or outcome; overturns the reasonable plot and logic and turns to fracturedcombination which is abruptly against causal relationships, or strange circleswhich paradoxically reverse the causal relationships and can never get out of.Spatial and temporal structure of the new period fictions with postmodernistfeatures performs as the groundbreaking deconstruction and reconstruction ofobjective time and space, mainly including: breaks and rebuild the chain of time,combines instant and continuum, intentionally shortens or extends the time,interlaces fragmental time with consistent time, highlights the fragmental time tocancels the eternity of the coherent time, boldly uses jumping, apposition, collage,chapter alternation in space presentation to create the space effect. Narrative pointof the new period fictions with postmodernist features mainly performs as diversityand uncertainty on the setting of the narrator and narrative structure, mainly including narrator's symbolic referent and deconstruction of the"author", usingsecond person narrative to explore the connection between the narrator and thenarratee and divers set of the first person narrator. Presentation skill of the newperiod fictions with postmodernist features mainly performs as the analysis of theuse of irony, parody and intertextuality.The fifth chapter"The Value of the Postmodernist Perspective to theDevelopment of the New Period Fictions"will mainly focus on the actual positiveimportance that the impact and inspiration of the western Postmodernist thoughthave on the development of fiction in the new period. First, the diversifieddescription of fictions with postmodernist features in overturn and deconstructionin the new period: on the one hand, Postmodernist thought triggers thetransformation of the model of thinking, from duality to plurality, and the authorsof the new period fictions with postmodernist features break the single pattern oflanguage with their open, multiple levels of preference of value; on the other hand,it also promotes the gradual appearance of a divergent pattern of writing. Second,the formation of reflective thinking and the broadening of the view of readers: withthe inspiration of the western Postmodernist thought, authors of the new periodfictions with postmodernist features start to give weight to the subjective role ofreaders, the effect that readers have on the significance of their works, and theemergence of interactive reflective thinking in the creation activity of literature,which follows the pattern of author-works-reader.The sixth chapter"The Introspection to the Postmodernist Style of the NewPeriod Fictions"will rationally analyze some certain negative effects that thePostmodernist thought of the western countries has on the writing of fictions in thenew period. The first part of this chapter will focus on the analysis of the threeaspirations of fictions in the new period and their respective dilemmas, which areresulted from the infiltration and influence of Postmodernism, i.e. constant pursuing of"newness"and the lost of flourishing scene, purified aesthetic taste,"Ugliness" in aesthetic choosing and indifferent attitude, secularization and"fetishism". The second part pays attention to the examination of the immoderateor even inundant preference of irrationality in the new period, and argues that thereis a need to think about the rational reconstruction of literature. The third partmainly discusses the negative influences of Deconstructionism to the fictions in thenew period.The conclusion"The Possible Construction of Literary Ideal"tries to thinkabout the solution upon which some sort of discussion on possibility will be made,regarding the question of how to reconstruct the ideal, spirit, and virtue of literature,with the comprehensive examination and observation on the influence ofPostmodernism on fictions in the new period. To realize the rational reconstructionof literature, that one possible way is that maybe we should look for the originalobligation and real meaning of literature and art, on the basis of returning to theclassical rationality.