Chinese Jianghu Culture:A Study On Three Chinese Novels

Jianghu culture is a typical form of Chinese culture and affects Chinese lifestyle and their way of thinking. From ancient times, there are numerous literary works about Jianghu and its culture. Novels with realistic features like Water Margin, The True Story of Ah Q and Brothers respectively represent ancient, modern and contemporary Jianghu culture. In order to clarify the emergence and development of Jianghu and its culture, this dissertation attempts to analyze three realistic novels, Water Margin, The True Story of Ah Q and Brothers, to interpret ancient, modern and contemporary Jianghu culture from literary, historical and socia perspectives.Based on close study of historical,biographical and theoretical works,the dissertation shows the author’s insight and understanding of Jianghu culture,contengts and background of the three novels and thoughts of the writers. The research focuses on the analysis of the characters through quantitative and qualitative analysis and descriptive research and exploratory research, not only showing the specific individual features in Jianghu culture, but also summarizing its universality. By the end of the study, the author compares features among ancient, modern and contemporary Jianghu cultures and summarizes the development of Jianghu and its culture.By studying the three works, we summarized seven main spiritual characteristics of Jianghu culture, which are brotherhood, chivalry, freedom and independence, egoism, retribution, heroism and equality. We divided these seven features into two categories, which are traditional Jianghu culture and Jianghu culture with modern cultural awareness. Brotherhood, chivalry, retributionl and heroism belong to traditional Jianghu culture, while egoism, freedom and independence and equality fall into Jianghu culture with modern cultural awareness. The duality of Jianghu culture, which is both traditional and modern, is an important factor that prompts Jianghu culture to develop from a marginal culture in ancient times to one of the multi-culture in the modern times. These three novels depict different Jianghu in different areas as well as its development through specific social events and characters. In order to clarify the development of Jianghu culture from ancient times to modern society, the paper discusses content and expression of Jianghu and Jianghu culture in Water Margin, The True Story of Ah Q and Brothers based on close study of the text and analysis of the historical background and the writers. Water Margin, originated from a folk tale which describes how Song Jiang revolted, experienced recreation in hundreds of years and finally turned up to be a masterpiece. It is full of Jianghu features and it depicts typical ancient Jianghu. By vividly describing the personalities of108heroes and events in Liangshan Marsh, Water Margin shows a Jianghu filled with heroes. Class distinction between people who belong to Jianghu and common people is obvious:the generous Song Jiang, Lu Zhishen, who is ready to sacrifice himself to help others, Li Kui, who is upright and outspoken, Wu Yong, who is endlessly resourceful, and so on. All these people can represent the ancient Jianghu. The specific places described in Jianghu of the Water Margin are far from the urban area for instance, Liangshan Marsh, Erlong Mountain, Peach Blossom Village, Qingfeng Fort and Zhu Jia Village. It can be said that Jianghu is a noticeable concept in the ancient agricultural society. Features different from the mainstream culture,like heroism, brotherhood, chivalry and retribution, laid foundations for the traditional Jianghu culture. Although modern cultural awarenesss in Jianghu cultre, like egoism, equality and freedom and independence, did not play an important role, they still existed in regulations and forms of Jianghu. Thus, they were able to act as a potential impetus for the development of Jianghu.The tragic ending of the Water Margin, in which Song Jiang yielded to the authority and then died unjustly, as well as the collapse of Liangshan, represents the discord between the ancient Jianghu culture and the mainstream culture. However, under the severe pressure of culture autocracy, Water Margin Jianghu culture continued to develop and was gradually understood and accepted by people, which shows its popularity. The True Story of Ah Q describes the spiritual status of the modern society. The unstableness of the modern political situation inevitably caused the social status of general Jianghu, which means Jianghu culture could be seen almost everywhere. The situation coexisted where authority members of Jianghu climbed the social ladder and Ah Qs were compelled to drop back to Jianghu. The general Jianghu brought the prosperity of Jianghu culture, especially in that some cultures with modern characteristics have been accepted and applied to people, such as equality, freedom and independence and egoism. In the meantime, the traditional Jianghu culture lost its popularity. Ah Qs were struggling to survive and their desire to survive stimulated their nature of egoism. At the same time, the situation full of revolution also provoked their desire for equality and freedom. However, for Ah Qs, there was something more than merely surviving. They wanted to live with honor, like a hero of the Jianghu, but they did not take action, only comforting themselves through means of "spiritual victory" to deceive themselves. For Chinese, spiritual victory was the essence to satisfy their imagination about Jianghu at that time. Therefore, Jianghu culture was able to spread further in their spiritual level. The concept of Jianghu in The True Story of Ah Q began to blur with the concept of mainstream society in the environment of general Jianghu. It began to evolve from the distinctive and special concept to a daily, popular style. It also interacted with other social forces, becoming invisible and jointly affecting the life of Chinese people. Compared with the implicit concept in the Water Margin, Jianghu culture gradually turned to be an explicit concept mingled in the mainstream culture. Yu Hua took several years to finish Brothers, which was based on the background of Cultural Revolution and Reform and Opening-up, and focused on the contemporary life. The different fates of Song Gang and Li Guangtou, who were brothers, showed the influence of Jianghu culture in contemporary life. In contemporary social status, nearly no one could live without the institution and members of Jianghu also lost their traditional status gradually. It seemed that Jianghu was becoming smaller; however, nowadays we can often hear common sayings like "When one is drifting in the world, how can he get away with terror?" Jianghu, in contemporary time, is not a specific place anymore, but a concept close to "a certain area where people with common traits gather". In the Brothers, Li Guangtou is a typical bully of Jianghu, call it Jianghu wherever he goes. The funny relationship about benefit, brotherhood and reward among these five people Tong, Guan, Zhang, Yu and Wang implies the typical rules of Jianghu. Zhou You’s licentious behavior is the reflection of simplicity and freedom embodied in Jianghu members. Jianghu in Brothers is not high profiled like the one depicted in Water Margin, and does not expand in general Jianghu style like that in The True Story of Ah Q, but has merged into daily life intangibly. Jianghu culture has penetrated into various aspects of common life, showing strong individual features and universality, and can be seen through every individual who live in an environment full of competition. By comparing the forms of existence of different Jianghus and the content of Jianghu culture in these three novels, we can find that Jianghu is becoming an implicit concept from the explicit one and Jianghu culture is becoming universal compared to its implicit feature in the past. By now, Jianghu and its culture has become a part which affects Chinese lifestyle and way of thinking.This dissertation discusses Chinese Jianghu culture through analyzing three novels written in different times and illustrates the essence of Chinese Jianghu culture and its change and development from the ancient times till today, which is the originality. Jianghu culture, as an important component of Chinese traditional culture, is influencing people’s life and work unprecedented in this era when traditional culture transforms to a modern one. One reason is for its own vitality and another for the diversity of modern society. For this reason, we despise the idea that Jianghu culture is a low culture, and tried to carry out the research in an objective way. Another originality of the reaearch is that it is in the light of development and seeking truth from facts, and tries to discuss different aspects of Jianghu culture and its epochal characteristics. Jianghu itself is implicit, mobile and risky and its culture has also long been implicit. It affects people’s behavior and adjusts itself through times. As the competition is becoming fiercer, the concept of Jianghu culture which advocates the principle of the strong dominate the weak is gradually accepted by the mainstream. Things belong to Jianghu, like its words, rules and brotherhood are increasingly adapted into people’s life. Application of Jianghu culture also brought success to more and more contemporary people, not only in interpersonal communication, but also in promotion. It can be said that Jianghu culture affects every individual in their interpretation to the society and themselves. It is also one of the culture roots which helped to develop the modern material society from the ancient time to today. We should understand its various positive influences as well as its negative ones. The Third originality of the study is that it illustrated Jianghu culture mainly from positive perspectives with no ignorance of its negative impacts.This dissertation is divided into six parts. The first part is the preface, in which illustrates the research background, research status, research method and its significance. The second part mainly discusses the emergence of Jianghu culture, illustrating main connotation of seven representative features of Jianghu culture. The third to fifth part is the main body, mainly discussing the presentation and content of Jianghu and its culture in ancient Water Margin, modern The True Story of Ah Q, and contemporary Brothers. The sixth part is the conclusion, summarizing the development of Jianghu culture shown in these three novels representing ancient, modern and contemporary Jianghu cultures, and illustrating its impact and significance to the modern society.