Bodies In Fiction: A Special Vision Of Chinese Modern Experience

To Chinese people, social transformation from the end of Qing dynasty to modern China is full of painful memories that came from both foreign countries' aggression and declining of native values, beliefs and confidence based on traditional Chinese culture. Such situation made Chinese people involved in anxiety and worries about their individual identity when they were forced to enter so called "modern society" in temporal world, because this "modern society" destroyed the traditional time and space concept of "the sons of the middle kingdom". A sense of shame and sadness was inflicted by the aggressors, creating inside Chinese people a complicated psychology about traditional custom and western modernity when they tried to recognize and rebuild their own modern value. When they tried to reorganize their consciousness, they adopted a strategy called the "westward" effort. Firstly, this effort means a recognition of the oppressive power from these western aggressors, whose aggression broke down the self-confidence of Chinese people, making them fell into the experience mixed with national shame and sadness; secondly, the "westward" presents a strong and powerful prospect based upon abundance and advance of materials that could bring Chinese people a brighter future. It is in this sense the "westward" gesture became a power source for Chinese people's"self-imagination"-----a hope to abandon "old self and create a "modern one". Thebody become a distinct cultural token of such rebuild of self-imagination. From Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao to "May-Fourth Movement", a whole generation ofChinese intellectuals ascribes the serious problems of China to the weakness and the invalidism of the body, hoped to rebuild a new "young China ". Chinese modern fiction became the carrier of this national fable.On the other hand, the fission of the time and space concept caused by modernity made Chinese people full of self-abasement, detesting and rejecting tradition, yearning and seeking for answers in the Western modern civilization. Based on the common understanding that the West means modernity, a large scale of Chinese people went to study abroad in the end of Qing dynasty, and young men moved towards city (the center of new culture) from their hometown one after another, which caused a new kind of body existence appearing. Such body flow means a revolting against Chinese traditional body concept, and becomes the foundation of the new body concept. Their experience in strange foreign countries has strengthened their self-definition and cultural identity as a Chinese. At the same time, body flow made it possible that every one can freely arrange his body, thus, the experience and realization of individual body become the important content of self-consciousness.All these are the historical context of body narrative in modern Chinese fiction.It is the historical context that makes the body narrative of modern Chinese fiction complicated. Beginning with "the discovery of man", and "individuality liberation'" and "individual freedom", appears the brightest discourse in fiction Chinese modern. However, the mould of "the man" in fiction narratives is full of ambiguity, which shows there are many different experiences and understandings concerning body and modernity to modern Chinese people. Since the experience of difference of body between foreigner and Chinese became the foundation of self-identity of Chinese people, and the pleading for liberation of individual body was replaced by liberation of nation, the body became a tool of national construction in modern Chinese fiction narrative. On the other hand, the new kind of body existence, together with individual body freely flowing, make everyone bear everything he meets with, thus, the body existence during daily life graduallybecomes the objective of the fiction narrative. Such body concept presents their different experiences and understandings of the modernity they encountered.But, the importance of the body in the modern experience has yet to be emphasized, especially in the modern fiction study. Along with the introduction of the feminism criticism in 1980s and 1990s, the body was noticed in the vision of Chinese literature criticism but still limited in the contemporary literature study in which only few fragmentary dissertations about the body study for modern literature emerged. This thesis is a pioneering effort in this sense, and the author expects to make up the lack of modern literature study and provide some reference for further study.This dissertation is composed of introduction, four chapters and its conclusion as follows :The introduction is to summarize the origin cause of this study, the historical context, trying to clarify the key words of this paper: modernity, body, narrative etc, and to introduce the compose tropism, tenet and the writing style of this study.Chapter 1, "the historical context of body narrative in Chinese modern fiction ", is to expatiate and prompt the historical context and the main character of the body narrative in modern Chinese fiction. The first section of chapter 1, "Formation of modernity context and modern body discourse in China", analyzes the reason caused the body narrative of modern Chinese fiction. The second section of the chapter discusses Chinese body experience and fiction's reaction to this experience, clarifies and outlines the modern changes of Chinese body concept presented in the body narrative in modern Chinese fiction.Chapter 2, "Deconstructing Traditional Chinese Diseased Body", is to analyze concretely the traditional body existence in China. The first section of chapter 2 analyzes and outlines that the body self-identity and imagination under 'other's sight" was easy to feel sharp self-abasement that lead to dissatisfaction and negation with their body. The second section of chapter 2 clarifies the traditional Chinese diseased body presented in modern fiction. In modern Chinese fiction, there are twotypical kinds of Chinese people's morbidity, one is the contra natural senescence, disease and death under inhuman life as well as the languished body without soul under high survival pressure —that's "materialized body". The another is man-made ugly or strange bodies which were criticized strongly by the author. From these analysis, we can realize that the "modern self "imagination started from the painful and humiliating body experience of the modern Chinese authorsChapter 3, "Myth of Salvation and Liberation—Nationalized Body Rebuild", is to analyze the important direction of the modern Chinese people's body existence imagination: the body became the tool of national imagination and reconstruction. The first section of chapter 3 discusses the "young "body imagination and construction in the modern Chinese fiction from the "May-Fourth Movement". Even though this body narrative is full of strong desire and requirement of "personalized body", and the modern authors combined the imagination of "young body" with "young China", the "young bodies" in the fiction are too weak to shoulder the heavy task to build a "young China". This confliction made the authors lack of the confidence with the body images in theirs works, in which almost none lively images appear. The second section of chapter 3 is to analyze and describe the two main body narrative forms in the revolution fiction— "revolution + love" and class hatred. The natural body desire was bereaved and imposed in these narratives which stress too much of the whole group value without concerning enough for individual body, therefore the salvation and liberation of body finally become a Utopian fable.Chapter 4 is entitled "The Absurd Theory of Oppression and Resistance—Body Desire Description", analyzing another important perspective of the body narrative: body imagination and construction in the modern Chinese fiction, namely the individual body existence in modernized daily life. The first section of chapter 4 is to analyze the relationship between the daily life and individual body as well as the body description concerning this relationship in the modern fiction during the period of society transformation. This is the other understanding and construction of modernity. The second section of chapter 4 analyzes the body narrative in differentmodes as in fictions of authors as Shi Zhecun, Liu Na'ou and Zhang AiMing. These authors began to describe the body desire of common men and women in their works, giving greater contribution to Chinese modern body imagination and reconstruction comparing with those authors of early modernity.In short, the conclusion of the dissertation sums up the main ideas and also presents some undeveloped and unsolved problems for advice.