The Self In The Sino-Western Modern Fiction Of Early 20th Century

The self is one of the core concerning problems in the field of philosophy and psychology, and people have already had many experiences and understandings to it. Literature is regarded as a subject about humanity and soul, so the self in literature is a theme that is worth studying.People have two kinds of basic spirits—the humanity and scientific spirit The literary writing is inclined to the humanity spirit and literary criticism tends to the scientific spirit, so there is an interesting and necessary tension between the artists and the critics. A reader is always interpreting literary works with a certain theory, but we have to recognize its limitations while admitting its effectiveness. That's called the Critical Consciousness.Aesthetic and ideological criticism of literature are two old and new critic methods,however, literary humanism can put them together reasonably and dialectically.Among the Chinese Modem Novel and the Western Modernism in early 20th century, the self consciousness of the host characters is a mental contusion and sometimes a paradoxical being. The thesis tries to display the different expressions of self, no matter what the self is—self-sufficient, unreal, or fragmentary; no matter who the characters are—madmen, strangers, outsiders, even disabled persons. Generally speaking there are two different self consciousness—"the Cultural Self View" and "the Individual Self View". It is to be experienced from motherland, society and race to individual in the Chinese Modem Novel, and it is to be achieved fiom individual to others and society in the Western Modernism. This has something to do with the tradition of Chinese and Western cultures. The spirits of Ah Q(LuXun,TheTrue Story of Ah Q ) and K( Franz Kafka, The Castle) are the typical cases of each selfconsciousness.Every age has its canon and classics. Whether a works is a classic may more depend on history, society and politics in that times rather than aesthetic elements of the works. The classic may not lie in its relevance to our immediate concerns, It gives a free way to different explanations but it also needs the explanations can respect its intrinsic logic There is no impassable gulf between classics and popular culture.With comparative literature on the basis of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective, its destination is to build a dialogue stage for different national literature. Comparative literature can and need find out its own foothold from national literature. The dissertation based on humanism with the point of view of comparative literature tries to find out worldwide factors in national literature and to look back a certain self with the view of world literature in world art.