Research On Chinese Legal Fiction In New Era

Chinese legal fiction in the new era refersto the direct or indirect narrative novels, including prisonnovels (“High Wall novels”), public security novels,anti-corruption novels and law-related novels. Chinese legalfiction in the new era, on the inheritance of ancient Chinesecase-solving novels, modern detective novels and contemporarylegal novels, using detectives and thrillers from abroad forreference, after three stages of development of politicalnarrative, heroic narrative and diverse narrative, form theirown distinct narrative features, creating a thriving writingera. Contrary to fiction writings, academics and critics seldomget in to this area in recent years, other than some researchon the anti-corruption novels, the study on legal fiction inall is still rare, not to speak of systematic, integral andmacro analysis and research.Based on the above situation, this thesis intends to achievetwo objectives through the relatively systematic study andinterpretation. The first one is to clarify their overallappearance and characteristics, including the occurrence andevolution, common themes and features, the successes andfailures of narrative strategies and the writing status andtrends. The second is to orientate them in the context of thecontemporary literature and their irreplaceable value in thenew era, to enunciate its unique literary significance and putforward the revelation for the contemporary literature writing,thereby calling for due attention to the academic study of the legal fiction.Consequently, this dissertation adopts four innovativeperspectives. What comes first is the perspective of integrity.A survey of the previous publications reveals that the legalfiction is in fact equivalent to the public security novel,which has confined its main narrative content to the criminalinvestigation solving the case, rendering impossible theinclusion of various writing focuses and narrative phenomenain different periods, the summary of its overall features, andthe regularity, gains and losses of writing. By adopting a moregeneral and reasonable approach, in this dissertation, variouskinds of legal fictions of different periods have been reviewed,analyzed, and integrated into a macro concept of legal fiction,thus a whole grasp of legal fiction realized. Furthermore, theperspective of textuality has also been taken into account. Thefew existing studies of legal fiction has often limitedthemselves to the relatively stiff and mechanical analysis ofpolitical criteria, class, social criticism, and thecomparatively old-fashioned analysis of the content and formfactors, lacking the analysis of epochal and literaryapproaches. From a literary point of view, with both anexploration of the common values exhibited in the aspect oftheme implication and an analysis of the conscious choices ofthe grand narrative route in context, the common features andthe pros and cons of the legal fiction of the new era have beenanalyzed in this dissertation.Consequently, this dissertation adopts four innovativeperspectives. What comes first is the perspective of integrity.A survey of the previous publications reveals that the legalfiction is in fact equivalent to the public security novel,which has confined its main narrative content to the criminalinvestigation solving the case, rendering impossible the inclusion of various writing focuses and narrative phenomenain different periods, the summary of its overall features, andthe regularity, gains and losses of writing. By adopting a moregeneral and reasonable approach, in this dissertation, variouskinds of legal fictions of different periods have been reviewed,analyzed, and integrated into a macro concept of legal fiction,thus a whole grasp of legal fiction realized. Furthermore, theperspective of textuality has also been taken into account. Thefew existing studies of legal fiction has often limitedthemselves to the relatively stiff and mechanical analysis ofpolitical criteria, class, social criticism, and thecomparatively old-fashioned analysis of the content and formfactors, lacking the analysis of epochal and literaryapproaches. From a literary point of view, with both anexploration of the common values exhibited in the aspect oftheme implication and an analysis of the conscious choices ofthe grand narrative route in context, the common features andthe pros and cons of the legal fiction of the new era have beenanalyzed in this dissertation. Through this analysis, on theone hand, it will make it clear the strength and preciousnessof grand narrative in legal fiction under the current trend ofthe popularity of marginal and individual narrative. On theother hand, it will also make it known the deficiency in thepure literary writing and remind that the future legal fictionwriting can enhance strong points and avoid weaknesses. Thethird is comparability. This paper will put the legal fictionin new era since modern times into the ups and downs of the wholemodernization process, and observe its adherence to theliterary historic mission and the spirit of enlightenment. Thedissertation will set it into the world literary context in the20th century under the collision and blend between Chinese andwestern cultures, and reflect the promotion of the soul ofrealistic writing and aesthetic taste by the legal fiction innew era, and then gain a correct view and evaluation of its literary status and value. The fourth is revelation. The corestarting point of this study is to discover the epochal,realistic and enlightening features of legal fiction writingthrough a complete descriptive analysis and vertical andhorizontal comparison, to reveal its attitude of “returningto the center”, to show its distinction between thecontemporary and current writing, and then to point out itsenlightenment for the contemporary literary writing.This thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chaptermainly focuses on the general description of the legal fictionin the new era through three sections. First, the legal fictionis defined on the basis of sorting out various names of legalfictions and determining its extension and intension. And then,the occurrence and course of development comes to the researchfocus. The Chinese legal fiction has a long tradition ofinheriting from ancient Chinese detective novels, detectivestories of exotic reference. Through the above discussion, thegap between Chinese legal fiction and foreign legal fictionwill be clarified. And thirdly, in order to have a overviewabout Chinese legal fiction, the wring situation and writingfeatures of Chinese legal fictions in different stages will beanalyzed briefly. Generally speaking, the development ofChinese legal fictions in new era falls into three stages: thefirst stage from the late1970s to the beginning of1980sfeaturing political narrative, the second stage from the middleof1980s to the end of20th century, featuring heroic narrative,and the third stage started from the beginning of21st century,which the feature of diverse narrative. Finally, Chinese legalfictions come into four classifications, namely,“High Wallnovels” reflecting the life in prison during the CulturalRevolution, the detective stories about criminal investigation,the fictions describing corruption and corrupt officialdomcrime fiction, and the law-related fictions describing the average person’s life relating to law.The second chapter centers on the analysis and generalizationof the common theme in legal fictions. First of all, it givesexpression to the writer’s keen political awareness and hisstrong sense of responsibility (and mission) by means of socialinvestigation and political insight, which finds its way in hisdeep concern about the well-being of the nation and the people,and in his fear about the future of the state. And secondly,it represents the value (orientation) of justice andjustification, and the ethics of “glorifying virtue andcensuring vice” with the help of establishing and eulogizingthe image of heroes in novels, including political heroes,ideal heroes and ordinary heroes as well. The third themefocuses on its functions to enhance the legal sense and themorality, on the basis of the reflection on the publicenlightenment and mass education in legal culture, involvingthe value guidance, moral cultivation, and crime prevention andalert. The final theme is to embody its high ideals in pursuitof revolutionary romanticism and lofty moral values reflectedin literary works, such as the high conviction, the value ofjustice, the appreciation of humanity and love, as well as theconfidence in bright future of the rule of law.The third chapter aims at analyzing and summarizing the grandnarrative strategies and shortcomings of the legal fiction.First, it sums up and digs into the grand narrative logo andinner pursuit of legal fictions. This aspect embodies in theobvious traditional writing paradigm, narrative context,viewpoint, characterization and plot structure etc. First, itnarrates close to the grand history and context of the times.It is adept in highlighting the types of intense conflicts,showing the intensity and tension of reality. Simultaneously,it forms a grand and striking narrative pattern through the use of grand images, lofty mood, excitedly dignified language styleand narrative fundamental key. Second, it prefers employingomniscient and omnipotent narrative perspective which is oneof the hallmarks of the grand narration. This means that theauthor is always on the spot, and does not evade from subjectiveattitudes and evaluation of the narration, with exposing anddirect emotional tendencies. Third, it adopts the "typicalenvironment, typical character" approach which Marx emphasized.It focuses on portrayal of the characters in complex, realsocial environment. It emphasizes on the history ofcharacters’ development and personality formation. Itdescribes the multi-faceted and complicating aspects ofcharacters. It portrays the inner world and the psychologicalactivities of characters，thus creating a real, tridimensionalimages of characters. Fourthly, traditional plotting model isadopted to create suspense, sharp turn of plot and suspensedecoding. With the three techniques used in a loop, the surgeand fierceness of plot in this kind of fiction can be achieved.Then, apart from the grand mainstream of narrative in legalfiction of China, another kind of narrative attempt is analyzedand expounded, including exploring into and using for referencethe writing technique of modernism fiction which, as abeneficial complement to the grand narrative like documentarynarrative, psychological narrative, absurdity narrative,intertextual narrative and ambiguity narrative, enricheseverything about the legal fiction in the new era of China. Inthe meantime, the flaws and shortcomings of the grand narrativein legal fiction are also pointed out. For example, tooexcessive personal involvement and direct criticism of thewriter which make the narration an over-simplicity andstraightforwardness; the shallow and superficial reflection oflife, the skin-deep and meager exploration into the nature oftimes, the inner developing trend of society, the connotationof life and culture; the conceptualization and identification of the characters, the patternized and modulized structure ofthe plot; lack of artistic feature in the language, lack oflinguistic intensity and over-colloquialism. What is more, nota few legal novels show a trend for flattering the vulgarity,pure entertainment and consuming, etc. These flaws andshortcomings limit the aesthetic flavor, the expanse and vigorof this kind of fiction in reflecting life.The fourth chapter mainly focuses on the status and the valueof legal fictions in contemporary literary history as well asthe enlightenment in writing. The value of legal fictions canbe illustrated in three aspects. Firstly, the incompleteChinese modernization process, off and on along the way, makesit unwise to ignore the social functions, responsibilities andthe educational mission of contemporary literature, which isfirmly followed by legal fiction writers, meeting therequirements of both China’s actual conditions and the readers.Secondly, under the circumstances of the great collision,exchange and fusion of Chinese and Western cultures during the20th century, by inheriting the national tradition inliterature and sticking to realistic writing style, legalfictions display their distinctive qualities with theirreal-life based writing style for the sake of recording humanlife. Thirdly, considering the tendency of recording realistichuman life and the revival of the traditional literary writingin legal fictions, a detailed analysis of legal fictions is madeon their inheritance of the enlightenment literature and theirclinging to realism writing style, which is fully embodied intheir reflections on the prevailing thoughts and views, intheir concern for social issues and hot topics, in their pursuitof the ultimate value of human, humanity and humanitarian, intheir emphasis on the social functions of literature, and intheir promotion of Chinese traditional aesthetic style,displaying the unique and precious characteristics of legal fictions in contemporary literature.Finally, based on the analysis and summary of the previous fourchapters, the author discusses the possibility that legalfictions can become classics in the future and the efforts thathave to be made to achieve this goal with high standards,looking forward to shed light on the prospect of the legalfiction for its writers and researchers.