Chinese Disaster Literature And Its Evolution

Disaster literature is not clearly defined by the academia. In this paper, it is confined to the scope of nature disasters that affect human life.For thousands of years, Chinese people, whose major means of life is agriculture, have been in many ways engaged with nature. Nature changes have brought huge influences on the life of the people inhabiting the vast land of China. The influences have been written in literature ever since the ancient mythology, which describes the conflicts between man and nature.The consciousness of disaster, which deeply rooted in the history of Chinese people, does not stay the same all the time. Influenced by cultural and political environment, it changes with the development of human being’s production. From the two distinctively different kinds of mentality toward disasters in mythological narration-- the conquest of nature and the loss to nature-- to the ecological study in modern literature, the consciousness of disaster evolves irregularly all the time. This paper summaries and classifies consciousness of disasters in literature. First of all, Chinese people’s early consciousness of disaster formed around the success or failure of man’s conflicts with nature. As man got to know more about nature, this consciousness turned into the helplessness and submission of man to nature. Under some specific historical circumstances, due to some political influences, man was once optimistic about his conflicts with nature. Man’s conquest of nature has brought this optimism to an extreme in some writings about nature. Simultaneously, politics also polarizes the consciousness of nature. In some historical stages, man’s attitudes towards nature were mixed with his political affiliation. Politics is not the only thing mixed with man’s consciousness of disaster. As man’s knowledge about nature gets more objective, the panic for urbanization and the anxiety from modern life both emerged into man’s consciousness of disaster. Anthropocentrism dissolved as man’s treatment of nature became objective and the relationship between man and nature became more balanced. As a result, ecological awareness burgeons in the disaster consciousness. II TThe establishment of every kind of disaster consciousness means the formation of a totally new disaster narration center from the mythology about man and nature in ancient time, to the materialist view toward nature in pre-Qin period and two Han Dynasties, and to the poetry all though the feudal society. The consciousness concerns not only the writings about the scientific understanding of nature, but more about the support of the royal power and the care about the agricultural activities. Ever since novel came into being in Ming and Qing Dynasties, disaster literature focused more on the complete representation of the disastrous events. In the semi-feudal and semi-colony society, the subject matter of disaster literature covered a wider range. This paper classifies the disastrous narration into three categories: 1. The center of the narration mainly focuses on the sympathy toward people and the complaint about the cruel society. 2. The center of the narration focuses on the dissatisfaction toward the government of the Republic of China. 3. The narration focuses on eulogizing the government of the Revolutionary Base for its work in banning superstitious activities, farming to provide food and leading the local people to fight natural disasters. After the founding of new China in 1949, two contrasting disasters narration centers formed with the Cultural Revolution as the divide. In the pre-Cultural Revolution era, the narration centered on supporting The Party’s policies, which was actually an extension of the disaster narration in the Revolutionary Bases during the Republic of China. The post-Cultural Revolutionary one focuses on arousing national memory, which is compensation to natural disaster writing in Chinese literature.The aesthetic dimension of the disaster literature is constructed through summarizing the disaster consciousness and narration centers of the disaster writings. This paper argues that disaster literature should have four aesthetic qualities. First, the direct result of disaster is the fear it creates in man. The disasters consciousness results from the fear. Second, the tragic beauty derived from man’s conflict with nature. Third, the sublimity of man’s creativity in his fight against the force of nature. Fourth, the beauty of returning home when man reconstructed his family from the ruins. The tragic beauty is the utmost among the four and the other three also demonstrate the tragic beauty to some extent. The tragic beauty in Chinese disaster literature is different from that in Western literature. Compared to that in Western literature, the tragic beauty in Chinese disaster literature bases at least on the following six points: 1. The demonstration of tragic consciousness should be focused. 2. The disaster consciousness must be established in the writing of disasters. 3. Life must be valued and concern for life must be prioritized. 4. The cruelty of natural disasters must be confronted face to face. 5. The healing function of disaster literature in the aftermath must be focused. 6. Anthropology should not be absent from the writing of nature disasters.The innovation of this paper lies in the prediction of the development of disaster literature. This paper maintains that the intervention of ecologic consciousness in the future disaster literature is inevitable. To a very large extent, ecologic literature and disaster literature will converge. Ecologic literature is a shock to and a compensation for disaster literature. It complies with the world’s concern over the degrading ecological environment. Later on, science fiction writing will also get into disaster literature, which is the best way to show that disaster literature has an ecologic quality. Deep writing will also be adopted so that modern Chinese disaster literature should not stop by the level of turning national memory into literature or by the improvised sentimental expression. Disaster writing needs an aesthetic dimension. At the same time, it should expand in time and space. Disaster literature should also have the religious quality of “gospel of the new century”, saving human being from “doomsday complex” by consoling and counseling it. Disaster literature should also face the impact of picture reading, demonstrating the advantages of words over pictures.