A Study Of Urban Fictions Writing Of Middle Class In The New Era

The rate of China's urbanization is unprecedented in the recent 20 years,with great changes in modern city.Under such a background,a new literary form of modern urban novels is quietly rising.Chinese urban fictions' emphasis upon the middle-class writing closely relates to the rising of middle class in modern cities.Generally speaking,the middle class with better material wealth are pursuing in a medium-high career,and paying a great amount of attention to the life style and taste,which represents the value orientation of main groups in metropolis,and displays the combination of spirit of humanity and secular in modernization.However,behind their colorful life lies anxiety and nihilism.When explaining the life of middle class,urban fictions point to the most sensitive part of the urban spirit.The process of middle class being written corresponds to that of being decoded.Literature is somewhat humanity,and characterization lies in the center of urban fictions.Unfortunately,the contemporary study of urban fictions mainly deals with narration from lower class,aesthetic interpretation,expression of desire,and criticism of consumerism.Systematic and comprehensive study of characters in the urban fictions is yet to be deepened,to some extent.Even if any,the relative study narrows its focus onto the lower class people,and the systematic study of middle class ones are seldom to be found.This thesis takes the middle-class writing as focal point and on the basis of close textual reading explores into the writing strategies,aesthetic qualities,the living conditions,emotions and spiritual states of middle class in the urban fictions.At the same time,the paper also discusses the influence by consumerism and rational economicalism upon modern metropolitan,with the aim to expand the domain and value space of the study of contemporary Chinese literature.The thesis is composed of eight parts,six chapters:The prologue illustrates the study background and its significance,defines such key terms as urban fictions,middle class,and writing,and introduces the outline and methodology adopted.The first chapter deals with the cultural context of middle-class writing.The paper,with the help of sociology,tries to read into the causes and conditions for contemporary middle-class writing,laying emphasis upon the professional characteristics,the regional distribution,the level of revenue,layers of consumption,and value systems,etc.Meanwhile,the author will,in this paper,adopt the perspectives of mass culture and consumer culture to display the specific outplay of middle-class interest and its discourse expansion.Moreover,this chapter is going to trace the development of contemporary Chinese urbane fictions,and its developing trails.Chapter Two tries to map out middle-class characters in urban fictions.On the basis of close textual reading and genealogy,the author will be going to discuss the middle-class characters,emphasizing the intellectuals in universities,professional technicians,entrepreneurs,officers,and artists that are typical of middle class,and drawing the over-all characteristics of these characters,and their distinguishing qualities.The third chapter discusses the law of life and secular living of middle class.The chapter tries to draw a clear view on the law of materialistic and realistic living through the analysis of the middle class' material desire,erotic psychological states and their philosophy of life.From the material point of view,the middle class put into practice their values of rational economicalism,established new views of wealth,and pursued personal interests.When the emotions come to the front,they up-sided traditional conceptions of marriage,emphasized the realization of personal desire,and decomposed the traditional sacredness of marriage and family.As far as the philosophy of life is concerned,they are after fame and wealth,and achieve their personal goals through personal relationships,logics of exchange and competitions.This is all due to their belief that one's struggle will surely change one fate.Chapter Four studies the formation of middle class' common identity,with its focus upon three means of identity establishment.One is to mark identity with fashion,another protrude the class boundary by out-spacing itself from the lower class,and the third is to acquire consciousness of class through comparing identity.From the view of consumerism,the middle class succeeded in achieving boundary from the lower through such fashion mark of eating,dressing,travelling,and playing.From the view of space,whether it is residence space,occupation space or social contact,it shows the boundary of social class and groups.In the ordinary social life,comparing identity and imaging it everywhere highlights the class difference.The notion of comparing has become a major constituent of urban social mentality.The fifth chapter analyzes the anxiety and salvation of middle class.The chapter will summarize the time representation of middle class' anxiety;explore into the causes of its spiritual predicament,its anxiety and its cultural metaphor by analyzing the texts of urban fictions since new era.This is to provide the references and advices for the introspection and salvation for the middle class.Even though they are in a real good material condition,they are in a constant state of anxiety,and lack of safety.The anxiety normally leaks out in the form of depression,intestines and stomach disease,and infertility,which shows that the suppression from modernity and the weakness of humanity.Only through introspection and salvation can the middle class regain their belief,annihilate nihilism,achieve the mental and body health,and acquire the desired free development.Chapter six looks into the strategies and real predicament of middle class writing.Under the circumstances of literary marginalization,writers employ various narrative strategies,which include the discovery of urban time and space,sensual narration,combination of popular and romantic ratification,the juxtaposition of literature and movies and TV,rhetorics and metaphor.These strategies lay the foundation for the double-faced characteristics of humanism and secularism in urban fictions,and at the same time actualize urban fictions' inclinations of planarization and categorization.Apart from the above mentioned,the loss of critical spirit,and the limitation of advocators are also the outcomes.The conclusion part gives a comprehensive evaluation of the middle class writing of urban fictions.All in all,as the reflection of modernization,the urban fictions map out the splendid material landscape of modern metropolis,illustrates the living conditions of nowadays middle class,delivers the aesthetic elucidation of urban modernity and new life to the Chinese contemporary literature.However,due to its low-level illustration of modernity,and shallowly questioning the spiritual dilemma of urban people,and withdrawal from the social injustice,urban fictions formed an inner block for itself.There is still something deep that needs to be dug out.And the width and depth of digging depends upon the two-way collision between and enhancement of metropolis cultural spirit and the writers' ideas.