On The Surviving Context Of Chinese Literature At The Turn Of The 20～(th) And 21～(st) Centuries

Literature phenomena in a period cannot be studied without reference to the surviving context of the literature in that time. With the economic boom in China at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the society stepped into a transitional period, which was characterized by the trend of pluralism in culture.The dissertation explains the definition of "petty bourgeoisie", a synonym for fashion in Chinese cities at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. It also explores the reasons why the class of the "petty bourgeoisie" comes into being. Further, it analyzes the general characters of the "petty bourgeoisie" literature by comparing the similarities between the works of Murakami Haruki and those of Annbaby, the representative of the Chinese "petty bourgeoisie" literature. As a branch of the "new city" literature, the "petty bourgeoisie" literature has the strength in that it probes and describes the subject feeling of humans, particularly the young generation. Also it demonstrates in depth the agony that one suffers when his/her desires cannot be satisfied. In addition, the "petty bourgeoisie" literature is driven by paternalism to chant humans' sentiments and consoles their desires repeatedly. The limitation lies in that the "petty bourgeoisie" literature focuses only on the desire in a narrow sense, but ignores the world in a broader sense.The part of conclusion discusses the present situation of Chinese society and literature at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Following this, it points out three concerns behind the prosperity of the "petty bourgeoisie" literature and city cultures: vulgarized aesthetic standards in the popularized literature, collectively fleeing away from social responsibilities and cultivation of literature quality of young literature lovers.At the end of the dissertation I explore the question on how Chinese writers should deal with the surviving context, particularly the pluralism in the literature consumption market in big cities at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. If writers fail to take into consideration readers' demands, emotional tendency, particularly reading tastes of the city youth who are the major culture consumers, and if writers cannot keep up with the progress of society and environment, literature will do nothing but lose its readers and markets. Eventually, it will be abandoned by the society. On the other side, however, literature cannot lose the sense of social responsibility and focus on pleasing the masses. It cannot give up the stand that it should take, merely to cater for readers. Chinese literature should have higher spiritual pursuit. How well a work is sold cannot be a symbol of how successful a writer is. Indeed, literature is not the culture for the masses. Vulgarized Chinese literature has no future.