Political Narration In Jin Yong's Swordsmen Fiction

Jin Yong's swordsmen novels, widely acknowledged as great masterpieces of Chinese popular literature in 20^th century, have been exceedingly popular among Chinese people all around the world. One significant reason for this amazing popularity is the rich and varied cultural imports contained in Jin's swordsmen fiction: there are reflections of Chinese traditional culture of politics and moral concerns viewed from the mcdern outlook, both of which provide a novel discourse for contemporary politics study, as well as an original perspective for constructing a Utopia supported by new moral tenets.Despite the rich political import of Jin Yong's novels, there has been hardly any political reading of Jin Yong in the contemporary "Jin-Study". This paper tries to interpret Jin's swordsmen novels as political narration, starting with Jin's political ideals mirrored in his fiction, and a discussion of swordsmen, as well as its relationship with Jin's life experiences. And then come to the conclusion that Jin has created a whole political system in his writing through the world of swordsmen. The three dimensions of "confraternity-court", "hero-nation", and "barbarian people-Han people', repeatedly depicted in Jin's novels, respectively mirror a micro-level of politics:, a medium-level of country, and a macro-level of nationalities. This correspondence between fiction and reality is quite revealing of Jin's political concerns in his writing.In Jin's fictional world of swordsmen, power is an overwhelming existence and leads to alienation of humanity. Relentless pursuit of power, a recurring motif in Jin's fictions, is most clearly depicted in two circumstances: martial contests for the hegemony, and fighting for esoteric martial books, weapons, or treasures. The world of power-thirsty swordsmen unmistakably mirrors the contemporary society. In this quasi-realistic swordsmen milieu, Jin tries to construct in his fiction a spiritual resort based on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, which thereby leads to his Utopian ideal of swordsmen society.