A Study On The Modern Chinese Initiation Novel

The initiation novel, as a novel type, originates during the Western Enlightenment. In the 20th century, modern China has also given birth to its own kind of initiation novel. In this thesis, the general research method, combining geneticism, culturology and narratology, is applied, and a preliminary exploration of the modern Chinese initiation novel, which stretches a period of 30 years from the May 4th Movement to the liberation of China, is conducted.This thesis includes three parts: introduction, content and conclusion. The content isdivided into five chapters.IntroductionAs for introduction, first of all, the concept and connotation of the initiation novel are defined by the research findings of some scholars at home and abroad, and further more, the factor analysis of the modern Chinese initiation novel is conducted for the sifting of text, in order to avoid omission and false drops. Secondly, the probe into the current situation and the significance of the selected subject of the modern Chinese initiation novel is intended to point out the deficiency existing in the current study. The research done by domestic scholars on the Chinese initiation novel of the 20th century is mainly focused on the contemporary era, while it obviously lacks of a whole grasp and case analysis on the modern initiation novel. So a macro-grasp and serious sort-out on the modern Chinese initiation novel as a whole is imperative. Furthermore, specific research methods and research mission are proposed in this thesis. Because of the nature of the topic, facts involved in philosophy, psychology, culture, sociology and other subjects will be referred to naturally, and geneticism, narratology, thematology and cultural studies will also be covered determined by the structure and framework of the research, which also required the appliance of a comprehensive research perspective, which makes it possible to use the advantages of these subjects and to avoid their weaknesses, to effectively examine the topic.Chapter I the Genesis of Modern Chinese Initiation NovelThis part discusses. In this chapter, the method, combining the exploration of the genre's origin and genesis, is adopted to discuss the occurrence of genesis in the modernity context and, on this basis, to probe into the historical reasons and individual motives of the genesis of the modern Chinese initiation novel. Section I studies the historical absence of the genesis in the Chinese traditional cultural context, and traces the profound reason for the lack of the initiation novel in the Chinese narrative tradition. Section II, setting the western initiation novel as a frame of reference, the bring-up of its genesis in the context of modernity is demonstrated, pointing out that the origin of the genesis of the modern initiation novel is the May 4th movement individualism discourse. Section III, according to the public shaping of the "new people", the direction and statute of the modern Chinese initiation novel is inspected, using the method of cultural studies, selecting the important journals or newspapers in different times to demonstrate the theoretical modeling of the"new people"during the May 4th movement, the revolutionary"new people", the"new people"during the War of Resistance against Japan and the liberated"new people", pointing out that these four kinds of new people are representative of the ideal personality expected by the social ration and they have exercised great influence directly on the imagination of the new people by the modern Chinese initiation novel. Section IV demonstrates the main idea of the authors, studies the personal motives of the genesis of the modern Chinese initiation novel from the perspectives of the novelists'own genetic stories told by themselves and the stories of other people, either fictional or real.Chapter II the Development and Narrative Type of the Modern Chinese Initiation NovelThis chapter mainly analyzes the evolution and narrative type of the modern Chinese initiation novel during a period of 30 years from the major theoretical perspectives, combining historiography, narratology, macro-analysis and microanalysis. Section makes a brief review of the modern Chinese initiation novel during the 30 years from May 4th movement to the liberation. This period will be divided into three parts: the beginning stage, the outbreak stage and the post-harvest stage, and each stage shows different narrative characteristics and thematic connotations. Since the writers in the May 4th movement focuses on the analysis and reflection of the traditional personality, many characters created are"old"sick Chinese suffering long-standing disadvantages of the traditional culture, the imagination of the genesis of the "new people" is still a luxury topic. Because of this, the modern initiation novel at the beginning of the May 4th movement is still immature in the course of narration, the quantity is also not rich, but the thematic connotations and narrative features are fundamentally derived. The modern initiation novel in the period of the left-wing revolutionary outbreak increased distinctly, and there was a writing trend of"National Allegory"mainly manifested as: the relationship between individual development and major social events becomes closer and closer; the genetic heroine grows gradually older and the significance of physiological genesis has been overlooked; mental genesis becomes the focus of the initiation novel in this phase; the narrative structure and pattern grow gradually convergent and immobilized. Since the individual genesis is increasingly regarded as the symbol of the nature of the country's history, and the genetic direction is also more and more toward the historic purposiveness, thus the initiation novel of this phase is often defined as"Educational Narrative". The initiation novel in the harvest period during the War of Resistance Against Japan is also very rich in quantity, and there comes a new type of genetic connotations and narrative patterns—"transformation"type, which possesses many features in the outbreak period. The genetic heroine appears in the image of petty-bourgeois intellectuals or farmers, and conducts a spiritual transformation from the"old self"to the"new self"according to the rules of social orders in the aspect of subject construction. Section II, in accordance with whether the genetic heroine had completed the genetic ceremony, the initiation novel is divided into three types: the dream on the way of genesis, the exiled genetic disillusion and the genetic myth getting"far-away", which correspondingly produce three types of genetic heroine images, that is, dream-type, disillusion-type and the myth-type. In the analytic course of the narrative type, this chapter focuses on the reductive analysis of the three types of genetic heroine images, with the view to obtain a complete grasp of the genetic figure's outlook and the author's writing attitude, and to avoid the deficiencies that the author's works could only occur as sporadic examples after breaking-up.Chapter III the Physical Genesis—the First Poetic Dimension of the Modern Chinese Initiation NovelThis chapter mainly demonstrates the mystery of the physical genesis displayed in the modern Chinese initiation novel from the perspective of culturology. Section I discusses the time myth of the body, pointing out the harmonization of the individual genetic time and the historical genetic time, i.e. the historical time is broken down at the time of the individual genetic time, and the individual genetic time is also involved in the construction of the historical time. Referring to Bakhtin's novel poetic theory, the cultural and aesthetic concepts of "the space-time body of genesis" and "the space-time body of road" are proposed. In addition, the exploration of the leading time pointing to the future, the one-off individual lifetime of time and the limited individual genetic time is conducted. And linking to the construction of genetic heroine's sense of time, sense of worth and sense of history, three types are summed up: firm-type believing in Darwinism, incomplete-type pointing to the past and individual time and conversive-type from the past to the future. Section II examines the spatial practice of the human body. Applying Lefebvre's space criticism theory, first of all, an analysis of special behavior patterns of the physical genesis is given—the genetic heroine flees into the social space from the home space, pointing out that, because of the feudal connotation of the home space, it possesses foreignness to the genetic individuality. And in the revolutionary ideological discourse system, the relationship between the home space and the modern nation-state has become completely contradictory and diametrically opposite. The prerequisite for the smooth genesis is abandoning the home for the country, or is even" destroying home "for the country. And the female genetic protagonist carries out an escape from both the "father's home" and the "husband's home". It also offers an analysis of the special logic of the physical genesis—open and free space displacement and space expansion. It is in the course of knowing about, accepting and rejecting all kinds of spaces that the genetic heroine constantly examines and adjusts the relationships of the body, self and space, and reconstructs his/her own social identity on the basis of all kinds of factors such as social classes, gender, culture, economy and others. The space itself has participated in the course of the physical genesis and identification of the genetic heroine as a social construction. Furthermore, an analysis of four typical characterizing spaces of the physical genesis—the prison, the army, meetings and the street (plaza), pointing out that the characterizing spaces are important means of imagining and exploring the subjects of genesis and reveal separately their unique symbolic meanings and aesthetic meanings which they implicate: prison space points to go beyond the physical and mental struggle, the army space to tame with the new-born self, the meeting space to the physical genesis and self-construction and the street (plaza) space to the physical and spiritual carnival shows. Section III discusses the discourse transfer of the physical desire, revealing how the physical desire, as a main product of the subject consciousness waken up and catalyzed by the Enlightenment and Reason, in a changing time, conducts distributing restructuring and redescription focusing on "revolution", the overall changing target. At the same time, it also reveals whether the discourse transfer of the physical desires succeeds or not, acting as a direct impact on the smooth genesis of the genetic heroine. Using the diachronic analytical framework to separately inspect the initial adjustment of the physical desire and social rational in the beginning period, the conflict between the physical desire and revolutionary directions in the outbreak period and the diversification of physical appearance in the harvest period is also explored.Chapter IV the Psychological Genesis—the Third Poetic Dimension of the Modern Chinese Initiation NovelThis chapter uses the generation theory of Lacan's post-modern psychoanalysis, investigates the three stages of the psychological genesis. Section I centers on the distinguishing and imaginary identification of the mother's mirroring in the stage of mirroring, mainly in three situations: First, in the initiation novels of myth and some dream-type, the mother's mirroring is a little other being surpassed and subverted, and it is difficult to give up the demands of the root; secondly, in some myth-type initiation novels, the mother's mirroring helps the mental genesis and the spiritual genesis of the genetic heroine; thirdly, in the disillusion-type initiation novels, the mother's mirroring becomes an insurmountable mirror-image mistake. These three identifications of a mother's image create different functions: the mother's mirroring identification of the protest-style makes the genetic heroine actively build his/her subjectivity while it makes him/her feel hard to discard the inherent weaknesses; the spiritual alliance-type accelerates the course of subjective construction and self-confirmation of the genetic heroine; the look-up-type hampers the subjective construction of the genetic heroine. Section II explores the dismantling and examination of the father's mirroring taken in the post-mirror stage. The modern Chinese initiation novel lively responds to the cultural concepts of personality liberation and freedom proposed by the cultural pioneers in the May 4th movement stage, and visualizes these concepts into living scenes and psychological schema in which there exists the "father" and "son" conflict. As the psychological projection of the father's mirroring on his son and daughter is not exactly the same, this section discusses separately from the different perspectives of the"father and son"and"father and daughter": First, the"treason-return"son re-splits and reexamines his father's mirroring, selecting four representative texts to conduct a specific analysis of the father's mirroring of the feudal tyrant-type, the class enemy-type, the original sin-type and the modern democratic-type. Second, it discusses the resistance and subversion of the mirroring of the treachery daughter's father through an analysis from two aspects: fighting for Marriage Freedom, and establishing modern national state consciousness. Section III explores that the genetic heroine in the post-mirror stage says good-bye to a father by blood, and ushers in a new "symbol of the father." The"symbolic father"representing new orders and rules, appears in an image of a torchbearer and educator at a crucial moment of their psychological development. The genetic heroine's acceptance of the"symbolic father"begins with the imaginary identification of the appearance of the torchbearer first. This thesis summarizes and analyzes five interventions of the enlightener's appearance: From the lust to the"no lust", male masters vs. female obeys, serialization,"the masses", the "official person" and so on. Subsequently, the enlightener conveys"to grasp in the first instance"as a symbolic guidance, and there are different"to grasp in the first instance"of the enlightener in different periods, which are from the discourse of individualism, the discourse of revolutionary ideology, and the discourse of nationalism. They are closely related with the social cultural context. Correspondingly, the genetic heroine identifies symbolically the otherness discourse of the enlightener. Only is the genetic ceremony interrelated as the speaking subject by the otherness discourse, can it be completed completely.Chapter V the Spiritual Genesis: the Second Poetic Dimension of the Modern Chinese Initiation NovelSection I studies the cultural connotation of the spiritual genesis from the perspective of the recipience of new knowledge and new education, analyzes the three ways to construct the genetic heroine's knowledge, pointing out the catalysis of the modern media and modern schools, as new ways of education for the spiritual genesis, and simultaneously examines schools'indoctrination function as an ideological machine, and the obstruction and negative effects on the spiritual genesis. Section II studies the cultural connotation of the spiritual genesis from the searching of meaning and faith, analyzes the significance of the will to meaning and the will itself for the spiritual genesis, using Frankel's doctrine of meaning, pointing out that in the modern initiation novel, the search for faith is as important as the search for the spiritual genesis, and that faith becomes the most crucial dimension of the genetic heroine's world of meaning. So, the initiation tale becomes a faith tale in a certain sense. This thesis conducts a multi-angle analysis on the reasons for this special Chinese genesis from the perspectives of psychology and socio-culturology. In addition, through a close reading of the texts in question and their interpretation, this section aims to dwell upon the spiritual products of meaning and faith—painful experiences.Conclusion:"Genesis"or"Generation"?It is found that the genesis shown by the modern Chinese initiation novel is put into a "generation" to some extent. The genesis in the sense of nature and life existence has become a generation with a strong sense of discipline because of the huge traction for the transformation and transition of modern Chinese society. The physical, spiritual and psychological geneses of the genetic heroine have shown a"generative"feature out of the socio-cultural mode. So the genetic heroine's image-building and the account of the genetic tale not only possesses a social and cultural significance of demonstration, but also results in some obvious defects such as the single subject connotation, the narrative stereotype, stylized and repeated monotonous aesthetic style. It is pointed out that the initiation novel should not overlook the genesis of the original meaning of life, nor should it restrict, with the ideological rhetoric, the"cause"and"effect"of the genesis. The academic goals and innovation points of this thesis are as follows: 1. Based on the nature of the topic, and from the general interdisciplinary research perspectives of culturology, geneticism and narratology as the researching methods, this study aims to have an overall understanding of the modern Chinese initiation novel. And this is the innovation objective of the methodology in this thesis. 2. Re-discover and interpret a number of the modern initiation novels neglected by the literary history, such as Wang Tongzhao's A Leaf, Zhang Wentian's Journey, Feng Keng's The Last Way Out, Zhang Tianyi's Gear, Su Xuelin's A Thorn Heart and so on, with a view to reveal, convincingly, the whole picture of the modern Chinese initiation novel, which is the innovation target to restore the history of the genre in this thesis. 3. Study the"mysteries of growth"reflected in the modern Chinese initiation novel from three poetic dimensions which are the physical genesis, spiritual genesis and psychological genesis, and provide a new theoretical paradigm and a starting point for the study of the initiation novel. This is the theoretical innovation goal of this thesis. 4. Insist on studying the occurrence, transmutation, narrative patterns and poetic dimensions with the longitudinal (diachronical)and transverse (synchronical) dimensions which are of cross-combined. This is the innovation goal of the writing style in this thesis.