Brief Discussion On The Modern Chinese Fiction Are Two Main Narrative Type

The scholars both at home and abroad have studied and delved into the 20^th century contemporary novels in China from different perspectives. Undoubtedly their research work is greatly useful and helpful to the further study by the scholars afterwards. The thesis focuses on the explanation of the two major types of narration in terms of the content in Chinese contemporary novels, that is, grand narration and daily life narration. The former is the main-stream narration of Chinese contemporary novels. It is closely related to the times, reflecting the development of historical main trends. With that narration, literature is strongly realistic utility-directed. It relies on politics. In some sense, grand narration corresponds to historical realism. Yet daily life narration is independent from literary main trends. It puts emphasis on literary aestheticism, maintaining that literature should not serve as the means of politics. Thus it corresponds to aesthetic realism. Grand narration and daily life narration assist and penetrate each other in Chinese contemporary novels, together contributing to the realization of literary realism. It is not appropriate to negate one of them.The thesis has five parts, with three chapters coming between the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction gives a brief account of the definitions of both narrations, the thread of thought and writing purpose of the thesis.Chapter One explores the origins of the two narrations. Liang Qichao indicates his idea about the attribute of the novel that a novel is instrumental in his illustration of political novels and creational activities. His most utilitarian views of literature and creation are the earliest prototype that the 20th century literature subjects to politics. Although his novel writing is deficient, he initiates grand narration in theory and creation. Yet Wang Guowei clearly magnified the artistic significance of literary non-utilitarianism and affirms the value of literature's being independent. His conception of novel writing is the important theoretical origin of daily life narration.Chapter Two mainly discusses the development of grand narration in Chinese contemporary novels and its representative writers. In the "May 4th" Renaissance of Chinese contemporary literature, grand narration and daily life narration penetrate each other. The boundary between them was blurred. However, when Chinese contemporaryliterature transformed from ethics to histocalism, the utility of grand narration was protruded. The 1920s' revolutionary literary trend, the 1930s' left-wing literary trend and the 1940s' literature of workers, peasants and soldiers all reflect that feature of grand narration. Because of the oblivion of individual dialectic outlook, grand narration ignores the individual and the aesthetics of literature, which causes its deficient. Lu Xun's enlighten novels and Mao Dun's social critical novels and Lu Ling's realistic psychological novels mostly manipulate grand narration. Here it is necessary to notice that Lu Xun is concerned about both narrations, since his Hometown and Village Plays are interweaved with daily life emotions.Chapter Three mainly expounds the features of daily life narration in Chinese contemporary novels and its representative writers. Daily life narration is a more individual one, which attaches more importance to the aesthetic function of literature. Zhang Ailing is an outstanding representative in employing daily life narration. In creational writing, she clearly points out the narration of "peaceful life" and the "desolation" aesthetics with contrasts. Moreover, Shen Congwen, who focuses on writing western Hunan novels of humanism, is another representative of daily life narration.The new research methods of contemporary literature provide people important inspirations. That is, grand narration is paid great attention to, but in the meantime, people cannot ignore the daily life narration; in the same way, when the influence of politics on literature is emphasized, people should not ignore the aesthetic properties of literature.