Behind The Transformation Of Identity

The world nowadays has ushered in an era of highly-developed urbanization, which China shares with other countries in its development. How to break the boundaries between the urban and rural areas to achieve their fusion, and how to accelerate the urbanization of the rural area gradually become the hot issues in the sociological studies and literary creation. The urbanization of China, which does not simply mean the increase in the number of the cities and its citizens, actually means the urbanization of the human beings, which is concerned with the changes of the human beings in their values, personality, psychology and behavioral manners in the process.My thesis mainly analyzes the Chinese literary writing about the urbanization process of peasants since the"New Era". It consists of six parts:The introductory part gives the definitions of the"New Era"literature and the urbanization of peasants, makes clear the writing sphere and studying object of the paper and tries to show the research on a macroscopic level.The first chapter focuses on the issue of the disparity between urban and rural areas. This difference, which exists since the very first day when the city was born, is the main stimulation for the peasants to enter the city. The incessant prosperity of the urban area makes a sharp contrast with the continual confinement and backwardness of the rural area. And this gap has a tendency of broadening instead of deflating with the development of the age. The backwardness of the countryside is not merely embodied in the materialistic aspects, but also in the deeper political and ideological elements.The second chapter elaborates the relationship between the city-dwellers and the peasants as well as their identification. Taking into account the relevant literary works wrought at the beginning of the establishment of our nation, we can see the changes in the attitudes of the peasants toward the city, its residents, their own identity and the fact of their"poverty". This relationship and identification has become the biggest obstacle for the peasants to go to the city. The third chapter discusses three writers LuYao, Li Peifu and You Fengwei, whose works draw out a clear line of the development and changes in the urbanization of peasants which occur in more than two decades from the 1980s to the beginning of the new century. With the analysis of the novels such as Life, The Common World, Boundless Morning, City Lamps and Loach, the chapter illustrates the hardship which the heroes experience in coming to the cities as well as the changes in the authors'ideas and styles.The fourth chapter analyzes the psychology of the heroes in the hardship and frustration. Self-abasement and resentment poison their mind and make them lose the ability to love. Though the writers provide us a sharp insight into the psychic traumas of these heroes, they ignore their duties of establishing a harmonious and loving world in their works. This chapter offers a critique of the void which they create due to their negligence of these duties.The concluding part gives a summary of the thesis and argues that the peasants must not only achieve the transformation of their identities but also that of their psychology, behavioral manners and values in their shift from the countryside to the city.