| Zhang Ailing, a unique and legendary female genius in modern Chinese literary history, was emerged in the early 1940s in Shanghai with her collection "The Legend" and "The Rumors". Her extraordinary talent stunned internationally. The works mainly takes Shanghai, Nanjing and Hong Kong as background, focus on Men and women's affectional dispute, the prosperity and decease of the era. The author narrates the hard and pitiful living status of the hopeless Lost People in a desert atmosphere. Therefore, the desolate stories often give readers puzzle, sorrow, pain, or even a chill-to-bone tragedy feeling. We could see Zhang's criticism, from the Lost People's life route and mental journey, towards human, corrupt humanity, and modern civilization. We can also feel dimly her sympathy and concern about man's fate.The first chapter: the Lost People's desperate pursuit----analyzing the life route and mental journey of Lost People by fine reading, in order to get a perspective view of their poor life. Most of the images created by Zhang Ailing, both male and female, are all Lost People. They may lost in wrong society and era, wicked custom, deficient substantial condition, lack of hope, unsuccessful love or marriage, or broken family kindred, etc. The Lost People seek because they are lost, but they would only become even more lost because from the pursuit they can only acquire disappointment. So they would be lost and miserable in such a cycle: lost-seek-no hope-lost. Thus, the selfishness, weakness, humiliation, indifference, hypocrisy, distortion and metamorphosis of people are exposed totally. Zhang Ailing, a cool realist, a total pessimist, was also a master of destructing romances and disillusioning the myth of life. She observes and describes hardheadedly the variety of status in Lost People's lives. Facing the turbulent reality, people are ridiculous creatures who cannot control their destiny, but only the sacrifice of the era. The value-orderless world is only an irrational exists, so people have nowhere to rely on. They've lost their spiritual home and become the Lost People pathetically, having no hope of finding a destination for their soul.The second chapter: The motivation of creating the Lost People, and their desperate pursuit----exploring the motivation of such a creation by hard and thorough searches. The turbulent era tends to make the Lost People hopeless arid lost. Any pursuit of Lost People, as individuals, becomes fragile in the turbulent reality. People cannot find a spiritual home to calm themselves. This time background is quite helpful, to Zhang, for creating the image of Lost People. In the meantime, the birth, experience and the era which she was in, makes Zhang extremely stranded, anxious, and lost. She, in the realistic society, had been a lost people, who was desperate in pursuing a spiritual home and need eagerly to express this experience. So she created so many Lost People and put them into endless hopelessness, to let them feel the cruel of reality, the hardness for living, the death of civilization and the desperation of pursuing, to abreact the disappointment of wandering while express her anxiety, loneliness and sense of crisis.The third chapter: Literary value in the image of the Lost People----discussing the significance, esthetic value as well as far-reaching influence, to afterward writers of the Lost People's image in Zhang Ailing's novel. Zhang observes calmly always. She presented the truth of life as well as her thought and aesthetic standard, by describing particularly a number of Lost People who have typical characteristics. The readers could acquire aesthetic satisfaction as they get known the social reality and the author's attitude towards life from her writing. The image of Zhang's Lost People inherits and carries forward Yu Dafu's image of supernumerary and Lu Xun's image of loner. The image of hopeless Lost People in Zhang's novel exists strikingly in contemporary literary world and influenced the afterwards writers largely who studied deeply the life track of the Lost People and form new branches. For example, Bai Xianyong's "Taipei People"; Shi Shuqing's "Hong Kong Legend"; Wang Anyi's "The Shanghai Female", etc. These works describes vividly, more or less, the feeling of sorrowfulness and helplessness of the Lost People.Zhang Ailing does well in converting physical events into metaphysical ones to make deep and rational think, representing her calm towards human life as she's looking down people. Her works demonstrate deeply, also, a look-down style of grace and nobleness.Zhang Ailing represented through these desolate carriers that life and human nature distorted under the formidable strength of environment, and described hopelessly the Lost People's desperate pursuit of a spiritual home. |
